I get it, finally. I get why they're heroes. For nearly three months now, I've been referring to Chip & Reichen as "our gayboy heroes," but I was never completely clear why. People keep challenging me on it: They're game show contestants who said who they are--what's so heroic about that? I knew that was a feeble response, but I was pretty bad at articulating my own rationale. 
"Because I sense it" was unconvincing. I knew why the role they were playing was monumental, I wrote about that in early July. But were they really more than lucky performers?
It just took one solid interview to reveal it. Thanks Bruce Steele, thanks The Advocate.
Of course I dove right for the personal stuff last night, because I'd been writing about the cultural impact for months, and I wanted to know more about these guys as humans. But what a liberating image they have of the power of their own personal liberty:
Reichen: . . . When we were getting cast on the show, we made no secret to CBS that we wanted to be portrayed as married, and they said, “Well, are you legally married?” And we said, “No, we got married in California, but it’s not legally recognized by our state, but we consider ourselves married, [as do] our family, friends—and 200 of them were there [at the ceremony]—and under God, and CBS really took that to heart. They were skeptical and said, “Well, I don’t know. We’d love to help you, but we’ll bring it up to the executives,” and when the executives approved it at CBS, I mean, everybody was thrilled when the decision came out—even the people that made the decision. It was such a fun and wonderful thing that happened, and we were just thrilled that they were going to put “married” under our names. That’s how we considered ourselves.
. . . You can get married anywhere you want. Just set up a ceremony and do it under God and wear your rings and tell everyone that you’re married. . . You know, it’s kind of saying, “Yeah, you know what? If the state isn’t going to recognize the rights that people want to have, then the people will go ahead and recognize that for the state. . .
Exactly. That's where we need to go on this marriage route. I really feel we've put the cart before the horse a bit on going to the courts demanding recognition. I applaud the men and women who stepped forward to demand that equality, but I'm a little troubled by the great throngs still hiding back in the shadows. So many gays have found the courage to come out individually the past 30 years, but it's surprising how few have come out as husband and husband. (Or wife and wife.)
We might win a few judges over in the courts, but that's a dangerous game without first winning over the reps in the legislature, and especially the voters sending them there. And more importantly the society. In the end, the laws are far less important than the attitudes of the people who create them. I don't want to be allowed to keep a job or get married in this society, I want to be embraced by this world I live in. We're not going to do that in the courts, we're going to do that at the altar--or wherever we can find someone willing to conduct our ceremonies. And we're going to do it on that great modern transmitter of our culture, TV.
The primary step is very simple: not legalize marriage, get married. (Oh, to find the freaking husband so I could put my wedding ring where my mouth is.)
What an experience, listening to these two guys talk. Reichen and Chip are not waiting around for someone else to tell them what's right or wrong, what they can or can't do. That sounds so mundane, but come on: most of us go right along with most everything our culture dictates about righteousness. As soon as things get uncomfortable, we adhere to all their major boundaries, or at best we run off and quietly get married and trot out the euphemisms and cover stories for all but our closest friends and family.
All that crap about who can and can't get married, that's all imaginary. That's other people defining your world for you, defining what your relationship to another man can or cannot be. That's all noise. And nearly everyone accedes to the noise, accepts it as the reality they live within. Chip & Reichen brushed it aside. "If you feel like you’re married, then you’re married," Reichen said. Exactly. You decide. They did.
It's interesting, the thesis of that terrified Focus on the Family op-ed this week was that if you repeat something long enough, people will come to believe it. From there they concluded that Chip & Reichen and CBS posed a mortal danger by convincing Americans of this Big Gay Lie through repetition. They're right about the power of repetition: but which lie has been perpetrated, and who has been convinced? What they never pause to consider, is that 99 percent of all gays have been convinced of the lie that they can not get married.
First and foremost, Chip & Reichen are heroes because they saw through the lie that most of the world buys into, and refused to let anyone else define their relationship for them. A lot of men and women have taken that step, but you'd be surprised how few, actually. The vast majority of gay couples still top out at getting a place together and calling each other "partner." (Partner. I despise that word. Are you in business together or married to each other?) They don't conduct a ceremony, wear the rings, or use the language. They don't claim it.
Chip & Reichen joined that first minority of gays a year and a half ago when they had their wedding. To my mind, every gay man and woman who defies the lie that has been brainwashed into them and openly proclaims their marriage is a hero.
But the unique steps Chip & Reichen took were landing in a position to broadcast their statement to 7 million people a week instead of 200, and then risking it. It was interesting to hear that CBS challenged them so vigorously. What I don't think came across was how easy it would have been to submit.
Consider their situation: you're a finalist (or semifinalist) for a reality show. The fame bug has just bitten. There's no stopping those images: picturing yourself a stAAAAAAAA. But your chances are still remote. Most of the finalists are going to be rejected. Everyone has an idea about what the producers are looking for, and everyone is working to embody it. Check out Reichen's advice to people applying for the next Race:
Walk in there, and all you want to keep saying is, “We’re gonna win,” because that’s what they want to see. They want to see people who, over everything else, just want to win because they know that’s gonna make for good TV.
People in the selection process know this. Everyone is trying to get on the show, no one is picking this moment to be a rebel. No one wants to appear too demanding. I have been stunned at my own reactions when I've been offered assignments--or especially when I've been tempted with the possibility of an assignment--at magazines I desperately wanted to work for. Vanity Fair got interested in a piece early this year, and I was ready to do anything to get in there. I would have knelt down in front of Graydon Carter and performed anything he required, that preposterous haircut of his be damned.
Then I think back on my first attempt to get on the first Survivor. It was seven months before the show aired, and most people had never heard of it, no one knew if this reality television thing was going to splash big or bomb, but I desperately wanted to get on that island, and I would have agreed to anything. That's what I thought when I applied. I had no idea. I made the first cut, and the elation ended when the contract arrived. They did want me to agree to anything. Use of my name, my likeness and virtual control of my life for three years. No chance whatsoever to write about it (for three years), which of course was a primary instinct for me.
I wasn't mesmerized by the money or the television exposure initially, that came later. I was desperate for the experience, and then of course, what I do with experience is write about it. Nope, gotta sign that right away. That one felt particularly emasculating, but fine, I'll take it, just get me onto that island. Then the contract got to injury, disease, and death. That scared the shit out of me. It went on about 20 pages and got quite graphic about the real possibility that I could be maimed for life, exposed to tropical diseases without cure or even killed. Pretty sobering stuff. Twenty-five people had been selected from my region for an interview with producers at the Denver CBS affiliate's studio. I wondered how many would accept all the demands--not to mention scheduling a comprehensive physical at our expense (which cost me over 200 bucks) and jumping through a bunch of other hoops in about two weeks' time. Twenty five.
And you should have seen that group in the green room. I thought I knew aggressive and hyperactive people--this crowd was bouncing off the walls. And everyone was buzzing about what the producers wanted and how to be sure to present it.
That was before anyone really knew what was at stake. I can only imagine the process years later. Most people in Chip & Reichen's position would have buckled at anything the producers asked for: Married, partners, whatever. We just want to be on the show.
And most of us would rationalize that the platform is more important: compromise where you have to to get there, then you can tell the world anything you want. Sometimes that works. If your group has never gotten a platform, and compromise seems the only way to get an opening, it may be a pragmatic approach. But Chip & Reichen pushed for more, and the producers pushed back; and then our boys pushed harder, and for the first time ever someone with a monumental platform like CBS handed it over.
And that's why those two boys are the biggest heroes in my life at this moment.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
