From Cape
Cod Times, March 2, 2003
Orleans Couple Fights
for the Right to be Married
by Jordana Haspel
Staff Writer
ORLEANS - For more than 30 years, Linda
Davies and Gloria Bailey have faced difficulties in their relationship that have
nothing to do with how well they can live and work together.
When
their friendship was growing into something more, Davies, 57, and Bailey, 62,
were forced to confront their own feelings about homosexuality. Then they faced
the fear of going public with their lifestyle. Would they be accepted by their
families? Could they still be part of the community? How would the world they
had secretly cultivated for themselves change if people knew they were lesbians?
Over the years, they have addressed all of those questions, and they were pleased
with the answers, but when Davies had to have both hips replaced three years ago,
the couple again realized just how different their relationship was.
Having
faced down the stigma of homosexuality, Davies and Bailey are now hoping to change
the law. The couple are part of a landmark case that will go before the state
Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday seeking the right of gay and lesbian couples
to marry in Massachusetts.
Filed by the New England chapter of the Gay
& Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, the lawsuit involves seven plaintiff
couples who seek the right to civil marriage, arguing that the right to marry
the person of one's choice is protected under the state constitution.
After years of maintaining their privacy and enjoying the relative peace of Cape
Cod, Davies and Bailey are at the center of a national debate and their relationship
is in the spotlight because of the case. They hardly seem like activists, but
their story, which began when they met in 1971 while working at a children's mental
health center in Hartford, Conn., is probably familiar to many gays and lesbians.
Bailey, who has a degree in social work from the University of Connecticut, had
been working at the agency for several years when Davies started there. Davies,
a native of Wisconsin with a master's degree in religious education from Princeton
Theological Seminary, was studying for her master's degree in social work at Smith
College.
Davies said she was immediately struck by Bailey when she gave
a seminar for new employees.
"I just thought, I really like her. I really
want to get to know her," Davies said.
To get to know her co-worker better,
Davies started challenging Bailey to Ping-Pong games. Bailey was the office champion.
But the intensely competitive and athletic Davies beat her.
While she
thought her co-worker was "articulate, warm, and bright," Davies said she didn't
have any romantic feelings for Bailey then. Though she once had a "special friend"
before, Davies considered that relationship a one-time thing.
Six months
later, when each partner started thinking of the other as more than a friend,
Davies had to rethink her conception of herself.
"When I first started
having feelings for her, I got upset. I knew that it had something to do with
me. It was not a joyous courtship."
"We weren't 'out' to ourselves when
we first got together," Bailey said. The Maine native had "one-and-a-half" relationships
with a woman before meeting Davies and was a bit more comfortable with her sexuality.
A year and a half later, on a visit to Cape Cod, they talked about moving in together.
Davies said she was ready, but only if she could still date men "as a cover."
Bailey said no. After a week, Davies said she wanted to move in, without the boyfriends.
"She has an absolutely positive, energetic, enthusiastic approach to life," Bailey
said.
More reserved and practical, Bailey complements Davies' more outgoing,
energetic personality. As longtime friend Leslie Moreland said, "Linda would go
and get the ingredients for a meal and Gloria would cook it."
Five years
later, the two started their own business, Women's Therapy Associates in Hartford,
where they still work two days a week.
"We're used to working as a team,"
Bailey said.
That venture and other enterprises, from buying antiques
to real estate, have supported the couple since 1976, but today their financial
connection is among their worries.
Not
equal under law
All their assets - their investments, their
property and their businesses - are jointly owned. The problem, they say, is that
when one of them dies, the bulk of their assets will be taxed since they are not
married. That, they say, could be a crippling financial blow.
"It would
be conceivable that we'd have to sell this house," Bailey said, referring to the
1821 Cape-style home they've shared since 1985. "It will be a hardship."
Equally troubling is what would happen if one of them has to go into a nursing
home. There would be no financial protection for the person left in their home,
although there are such provisions for married couples.
Davies' cousin,
Sue Hallgarth, and her partner, Mary Ellen Capek, are in a similar situation.
They are so concerned about that possibility, they have considered drastic measures
to link themselves legally. The couple was told by their lawyer that if one of
them died, the other would lose $90,000.
"We even thought about adopting
(each other)," Capek said.
"Sue would be the mommy. It's the kind of wacky
things you get into just so you would be legally protected."
Health issues,
however, have forced Davies and Bailey to face the legal difficulties associated
with their relationship.
When Davies had both hips replaced, the couple
first went from hospital to hospital interviewing staff about what access Bailey
would have to her.
The process opened their eyes, Bailey said. Although
they both have proxies allowing them to make medical decisions for each other,
hospital staff members will not abide by the situation unless they bring the paperwork
with them.
"That was a whopper," Bailey said. "We didn't realize at all
what the benefits were of being married."
They have spent thousands of
dollars in legal fees trying to establish as much legal protection as possible,
but they continued to bump into marriage rights they just could not duplicate.
When they heard about the successful lawsuit that made civil unions legal in Vermont,
Bailey and Davies contacted GLAD, which had fought the legal battle there and
was preparing a similar one in Massachusetts. The group picked them as one of
seven couples to sue Massachusetts in April 2001.
The lawsuit was denied
last summer by the Suffolk Superior Court. GLAD will bring its appeal to the SJC
on Tuesday.
"The state really shouldn't interfere with their right to
choose who they want to marry," said Mary Bonauto, GLAD civil rights director
and the lawyer arguing the case. "Under the Massachusetts Constitution, these
families like Linda and Gloria should have the same right to choose someone to
marry as everyone else."
'A very foolish lifestyle'
Although the lawsuit pits the plaintiffs
against the state Department of Public Health, the Wellesley-based group Massachusetts
Citizens for Marriage has strongly opposed the extension of marital rights to
homosexuals. While the SJC considers the GLAD lawsuit, the Citizens for Marriage
is also suing to force the Legislature to vote on putting its "Protection of Marriage"
question on the ballot,
J. Edward Pawlick, an attorney for the group,
said it would be discrimination to give gays and lesbians the right to marry without
granting the same right to anyone else who might want it.
"There's all
kinds of groups that want to get married," Pawlick said. "Society decided thousands
of years ago that (heterosexual marriage) was the best way to raise children."
Pawlick said people who speak out against gay marriage are often labeled as homophobic,
but he points to polls conducted by his group that found that 60 percent of residents
would support an amendment to ban gays from marrying.
"They're not all
bigots. Some of them are, but not all," he said. "I don't dislike homosexuals.
But I think they have a very foolish lifestyle."
Attorney General Thomas
Reilly's office is obligated to defend the state, said AG spokeswoman Ann Donlan.
In the past, Reilly has supported efforts to recognize same-sex relationships.
"Regardless of the views of the attorney general, we have a duty to defend the
commonwealth. There's nothing in the constitution that guarantees the right for
gays to get married," she said. "What is not at issue is whether permitting same-sex
couples to marry would be good public policy."
According to census figures,
there are 49,457 married couples in Barnstable County. There also are 4,633 live-in
couples, including 895 same-sex couples, according to the Web site gaydemographics.org,
although questions have been raised about the accuracy of that statistic.
A long road to going public
Once Bailey
and Davies moved to the Cape, the two immersed themselves in local life. They
were avid tennis players and sailors, but they've since traded in their sailboat
for a fishing boat. They also are active at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Church in Brewster.
For years, they were scared to go public with their
families, but they gradually told people about their relationship. The result,
they say, has been support and acceptance from everybody.
It took Davies
20 years to tell her mother.
Bailey remembers denying that she was a lesbian
once, years ago, when her younger sister, Shirley Richardson, asked. But after
Richardson's children were born, Bailey opened up.
"When I told her, she
said, 'I just have one request: don't ever lie to my children,'" Bailey said.
They became so open after that, a niece once turned to her aunt "Dodes" and "Davie"
- nicknames for Bailey and Davies - and asked, "which one of you is my real aunt?"
"I feel as close to Linda as I do to my sister Gloria," Richardson said. "I think
over the years, as they've been able to branch out, and the social aspect of gay
relationships has come to the forefront, they have a very full relationship. Having
the families behind them and supportive have made that what it is today."
Richardson's children and now grandchildren visit their great-aunts regularly,
getting lobster dinners and boat trips. When Richardson's children were young,
Bailey and Davies would visit them in Maine every summer and buy all their school
clothes for them, Richardson said.
Now there is just one more barrier
Davies and Bailey believe they need to break through.
"I want to be able
to marry Gloria. For all these years I've wanted to marry Gloria. I love her,"
Davies said.
The optimist of the family, Davies said she thinks that could
happen after Tuesday's court hearing.
"Linda gets mad at me because I
don't want to plan the wedding details," Bailey said, turning to her partner.
"In this, I wish I had your optimism."
