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Mr. Howell Raines Mr. Gerald Boyd Mr. Allan Siegal [via e-mail] Wednesday, July 24, 2002 Dear Mr. Raines, Mr. Boyd and Mr. Siegal: This is to extend our profound gratitude to you with the hope we'll be able to thank you once more. In your reporting over the years, you have covered, and have had a special sensitivity to, the struggles of constituencies within the civil rights movement. As readers concerned with equality, we thank you. No, this isn't a job application. We promise. We are hoping once again you will lead the way. And what we're about to ask of you can be done, we believe, without sacrificing your journalistic integrity. We are asking you to change The New York Times' policy and to publish our Civil Union and Jewish ceremony announcement. Hubris is a most unbecoming quality, so we -- two loyal Times readers named Daniel Gross and Steven Goldstein -- beg your indulgence for the question we're about to pose. If one of us were Danielle or the other, Stephanie, would we make it into the paper? Daniel, 32, is a Vice President in the Structured Finance Group at General Electric Capital. He is a cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale College. He received his M.B.A from the Yale School of Management and his Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Thailand. He was a Class Day speaker at Yale. His father is a former assistant state's attorney in Cook County, Illinois. His mother founded a eponymous clothing business with sales across the United States. Steven, 40, is chairman of Attention America, a consulting firm in New York. He was a co-campaign manager in U.S. Senator Jon Corzine's 2000 election race, and previously had been press secretary to U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg and Attorney General candidate Eliot Spitzer. He was a lawyer on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, working for then-Congressman Chuck Schumer. He won 10 local Emmys as a news producer at the ABC affiliate in Washington. His B.A. is summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis. He holds masters degrees from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the Columbia School of Journalism and his J.D. is from Columbia Law School. His father is the founder and head of a court reporting company in Manhattan. His mom works with a foundation for the disabled. The background of the both of us is easily verifiable. Our ceremony is this Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, August 31, a Rabbi will conduct our official Jewish ceremony with the full approval of two branches of Judaism: Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism. In March 2000, as you know, Reform Judaism -- the largest branch of Judaism in the U.S. and the world outside Israel -- officially approved same-sex unions. On Sunday, September 1, a Vermont Judge will officiate at our Civil Union ceremony. The weekend itself will mark our tenth anniversary. Mr. Raines, Mr. Boyd and Mr. Siegal, if our religion approves of our ceremony, won't you? If a state approves of our ceremony, can't you? Allow us to anticipate your argument that equality in marriage is law nowhere in the United States, and that a change in policy by The Times would amount to taking a position on a controversial issue. Some thoughts in response. 1. Everyday The New York Times publishes editorials. No one seriously thinks the paper's reporting is biased by the editorials. Well, okay, some do -- those who don't understand the wall between reporting and the editorial page at newspapers like The Times. But that sure doesn't stop The Times from publishing editorials, as it shouldn't. 2. Given that the religion we practice, the largest branch of the world's oldest monotheistic religion, recognizes our union, isn't it institutional bias for The New York Times NOT to publish our announcement? 3. Does The Times have an obligation to be sensitive to the constituencies among its readership? There's the oft-cited statistic that 10 percent of the population is lesbian or gay. In some places it's no doubt less. But in other places, such as the New York City metropolitan area and cities nationally where The Times has an impressive circulation, the figure is no doubt more. Our community, as loyal readers of The Times, doesn't want to feel rejected by your paper when we read the Society pages every Sunday. We, our community, and the two of us in particular, love your paper. From studies of branding, you know that no other company in the world has stronger customer loyalty than does The New York Times. Readers, including us, have an intensely personal relationship with The Times. We don't reject you. Please stop rejecting us. Yours is a public trust, including with our community. 4. Shouldn't the world's greatest newspaper be among newspapers at the head of the pack rather than behind it? Just this past Sunday, July 21, 2002, the Fayetteville Observer -- in Fayetteville, North Carolina -- published its first Civil Union announcement. It was accompanied by an explanatory sidebar as to why the paper decided to make the move. "We try to be sensitive to community standards," publisher and editor Charles Broadwell wrote. "We also try to promote tolerance, though that doesn't mean we endorse the legal recognition of same-sex unions. I eventually decided that to refuse such an announcement -- which we print for free, along with most of the more standard announcements -- would be hypocritical or even discriminatory. So that's why we are publishing it today." Reading Mr. Broadwell's explanation, we can't help but ask: If there were still, heaven forbid, miscegenation laws on the books, would The New York Times not publish the announcement of an interracial couple? And if the Fayetteville Observer can make the change -- even after weighing the perceived community standards of North Carolina -- why not you in New York? Other newspapers, also serving jurisdictions less socially progressive than those The New York Times serves, have published same-sex announcements as well. This is far from asking The New York Times to be iconoclastic. This is about asking The New York Times to join the growing pack. This is about asking The New York Times to make a decision to put itself in the upper quartile of change, and not the bottom. Wouldn't that befit the greatest newspaper that ever existed? We would be honored to hear from you soon. Again, our gratitude and hopes for your most serious consideration. In the meantime, you may visit our Civil Union website at www.Celebrating10.com. With respect and
every warm wish, |