Queerly Wed Celebrations: Dean and Gary

Please join us at Queerly Wed to celebrate the marriage of Dean and Gary!

When did you meet? Dean and Gary met in Chicago, Illinois and fell in love on December 2, 2002.

Where did you get married? In November 2004, Dean and Gary celebrated a Holy Union Ceremony at First Presbyterian Church. That ceremony, though spiritually meaningful, had no efficacy with regard to the laws
of the State of Iowa. On May 31, 2009, we were legally married in Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa.

Who proposed? How? “Let’s give it a year,” said Dean. If we still feel the same, we can make arrangements to merge our lives together. Just three weeks later, however, Dean proposed. “Will you marry me?” he asked. Of course it made no sense. For Dean and Gary, marrying meant giving up everything that had ever mattered—family, church, job and community. It was an impossible prospect. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t work. Gary lived in Iowa. Dean lived in Ohio. All would be lost by this insane proposition.
With this in mind, Gary wrote a  five-word answer: “Dear Dean. Yes. Love, Gary.”

Their story:

Living a lie was no longer an option. Given the choice between a living death and genuine life, Dean and Gary chose life, and they would sacrifice everything if necessary to follow that dream. It is one thing to fly in the moonlight, unseen by society, and another to fly in full daylight. This was, after all, Mason City, Iowa.

It was doubtful the townsfolk were ready for a pair of bona fide faggots living in their midst. Dean and Gary determined to stay below the radar. Mason City, Iowa is not a place of plentiful shadows. People here know their neighbors, and their neighbors’ business. Dean and Gary continued to convince themselves that scandal and infamy would be their lot if they remained in rural Iowa. The truth is, they had difficulty shedding the years of conditioned self-loathing and shame that accompanied their situation. There had to be somewhere they could go where being themselves would not carry a banner of notoriety.

That “Somewhere” turned out to be Cincinnati, Ohio. Gary found a job, and Dean’s businesses were nearby, making it a convenient choice to set up two lives together. Cincinnati was a big enough city that Dean and Gary felt they could become anonymous and live their lives quietly, giving them a chance to adjust to the concept of being a gay couple in straight America. They bought a house and prepared to move away from Iowa forever. Gary gave his six-month notice to his business partners, informing them that he would be moving. He told them nothing of Dean or of being gay. “They really don’t need to know,” he reasoned. Then one fateful day, one of Gary’s medical partners cornered him in his office. This moving to Ohio thing had bothered him, and he was going to find out what was behind it all. “Why do you have to move? Why can’t you just stay in Iowa?” Gary dodged and hedged, but his partner was not about to let him off the hook. When Gary realized that none of his excuses were going to satisfy his interrogator, he simply came out with the truth.

The response surprised him. “If you think it matters, it doesn’t. So I’m going to ask you again, ‘Why do you have to move? Why can’t you just stay in Iowa?’” After getting the same response from all seven of his medical partners, Gary took stock of the situation. He was leaving a near-perfect job in Mason City and taking a mediocre job in Cincinnati simply for the sake of running away—of hiding in the pseudo-closet of the big city. Wasn’t this whole experience about living authentically? Why did he need to run away and hide?

After a long heart-to-heart talk with Dean, both men decided that Mason City would be their home, whatever the outcome, whatever the public outcry, whatever the consequence. It’s a decision they’ve never regretted.

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