A LOOK AT LOVE
By Liz Doup Staff Writer
Sun-Sentinel Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Forget the recent buzz about gay marriage, the flurry of words from politicians and preachers, lawyers and lovers. Just focus on this image from I Can't Marry You, a documentary about same-sex couples who want the right to wed.

The camera captures an elderly couple named Steve and Malcolm. Steve speaks, sitting by Malcolm, who lies in a hospital bed, his eyes unblinking, his expression blank.

Steve gently cradles Malcolm's hand in his own and says to the camera: "We've been together 42 years."

"That's what I wanted to put a human face on," says Catherine Gray, the Fort Lauderdale filmmaker who produced and directed the documentary. "I wanted to show people there's no difference in these relationships. It's the same kind of love and commitment."

Though Gray didn't plan it, timing for her documentary couldn't be better. She had just finished shooting the footage in 2003 when gay marriage grabbed national headlines after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the state's ban on same-sex civil marriage.

Now, just weeks after gay and lesbian couples began legally marrying in Massachusetts, Gray's film will air on two South Florida PBS stations on Thursday and Monday.

The documentary, narrated by Betty DeGeneres, mother of comedian Ellen DeGeneres, features 20 couples together anywhere from 10 years to 55 years. Five South Florida couples are included, along with others, speaking from the pristine mountains of North Carolina to the concrete canyons of Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan.

The film is filled with indelible images of longtime couples, a few now white haired, in their younger days. Celebrating birthdays. Playing with their dogs. Walking hand in hand.

One segment shows couples, simply and sweetly, describing what's special about their partner.

"We talk to each other. No secrets."

"We're friends. We like each other."

And there's a moment of laugh-out-loud humor when a gay man explains how his mother practiced saying partner instead of friend by talking to a plant.

And his partner interjects: "And now she's worried because all the plants know."

They all talk of their lives together, and not just the early, heady days of falling in love. One-half of a West Palm Beach lesbian couple is good naturedly portrayed as bossy. One-half of a rural Michigan gay couple readily admits to being stubborn.

Their frank assessment of day-to-day compromise and conflict makes the film ring true. As gay couples, they have good times and bad. Just like anyone else.

WANTING EQUAL RIGHTS

Dick Rogers and Bill Mullins, together 41 years, are interviewed in their Fort Lauderdale apartment overlooking the beach. They wanted to show that gay relationships can be long and loving and that they are as deserving of equal rights as anyone else.

"We've helped each other through life," Rogers says later. "If we could, we'd get legally married."

Both men served their country in the military and spent years working and paying taxes. Though they're 67, neither can collect on the others' federal retirement benefits.

Throughout the film, similar stories are interspersed with legal experts detailing marriage's advantages, including more than 1,000 federal rights, protections and responsibilities. Though Massachusetts's residents can marry legally now, the federal government recognizes only marriage between a man and a woman. And Massachusetts is pushing ahead with a controversial state constitutional amendment to end same-sex marriages in 2006 or later, while, 49 other states are grappling with the issue.

"I think it was brilliant, how Catherine hit all the subjects," Rogers says of the film. "I don't know if she realized when she was making it how important it would be."

GRAY'S COMING OUT

Gray made the film using a chunk of her money and her heart.

She had carved out a successful 17-year career in cable TV advertising. She was a good businesswoman, too, who'd made smart investments in real estate.

Back in 1987, she even produced a gay-oriented TV entertainment show called Way Off Broadway, which aired on a South Florida cable TV station.

Still, she couldn't tell her parents what she'd known for decades: She's a lesbian.

"I was afraid of losing my family," she says. "And I loved them so much."

In 2000, Gray gave herself a 40th birthday present by gently telling her parents the truth: "I'm gay, and I'm very happy with my life." It took a few months for acceptance to settle in, but it did. That same year, Gray took a long, hard look at her life.

"I decided I wanted to do something more meaningful," she says.

In 2003 she started shooting footage for I Can't Marry You. Since the film's release last year, it has appeared in film festivals and fund-raisers from California to New York as well as the heartland, including Iowa and Illinois.

Gray now splits her time between Fort Lauderdale and New York, where she's in a new relationship. Like the people in her film, she wants to get married someday.

"My parents were married for 55 years," she says. "I want the same thing that they had, that my sister and her husband have."

Liz Doup can be reached at ldoup@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4722.

ON TV AND RADIO
Program: I Can't Marry You

Airs: 11 p.m. Thursday and 2 a.m. Sunday on WPBT- Ch. 2; 11 p.m. Monday on WLRN-Ch. 17

Radio: Producer/director Catherine Gray will be on Topical Currents, 1 to 2 p.m. Monday on WLRN (91.3 FM).

Web: www.icantmarryyou.com

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