Sean and Tim McQuillan
Until today, Iowa's Only Legally Married Same-Sex Couple
Today, the fullness of Marriage Equality became a reality in Iowa, in the Heartland of America!
When for a brief shining moment, Same-Sex Marriage was legal (for 5 hours, then a stay of the lower court order was entered pending todays ruling) one brave couple became the first and until today's ruling the only same-sex married couple in the State of Iowa. Here is their story.
When for a brief shining moment, Same-Sex Marriage was legal (for 5 hours, then a stay of the lower court order was entered pending todays ruling) one brave couple became the first and until today's ruling the only same-sex married couple in the State of Iowa. Here is their story.
"It's awkward to see people pretending we're not people, that we're a demographic or just people to vilify,” said Sean Fritz, right. He and Tim McQuillan, left, who
married September 2007, play Guitar Hero - a video game - in their Ames apartment.
January 20, 2008
Pair reflect on months as married gay couple
By REID FORGRAVE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
One image encapsulates the chaos of the summer morning five months ago when gay marriage was legal - briefly - in Polk County.
A crowd of 30, mostly reporters and photographers, encircles two young men under a maple tree. Sean Fritz, bearded and dripping sweat, throws his arms around the tall, redheaded Tim McQuillan. With a kiss, their marriage is sealed - and so is their position as the unlikely poster children of gay marriage in Iowa.
After months of quiet married life in Ames, Sean, 24, and Tim, 21, have returned to the middle of a media maelstrom as Iowa's most visible symbol of gay marriage.
"It's awkward to see people pretending we're not people, that we're a demographic or just people to vilify," Sean said. "I mean, it's me. It's my marriage. And this stuff, it can hurt."
And yet it's so much more than one marriage between two people. These two self-proclaimed nerds - one a computer scientist looking for work, the other a linguistics major at Iowa State University - will continue to be poster children until the Iowa Supreme Court rules on the gay marriage case later this year or in 2009. Their marriage, and all it represents, will continue to be glorified and vilified.
But for Sean and Tim, the controversy and symbolism surrounding their marriage is the simple part. Though they say they never sought the attention and that they married simply because they wanted to show their commitment to each other, they are fine with becoming spokesmen for the cause of gay marriage. They're fine with photographs from their wedding being featured in the New York Times and with fielding calls from national television shows.
The complicated part takes place when the two step out of the spotlight, return to married life, and learn, as so many couples do, that there's more to marriage than they had expected.
"It's a difficult concept to get your head around at first," Tim said. "It's much more monumental than we give it credit for. It's hard to describe in words. I hadn't expected anything like that to ever happen to me. ... I hadn't even considered it. I didn't even have time to think about it. Then this happened, and it's like worlds colliding. It's so on the opposite side of everything I had built my life up to."
A memory: Sean Fritz is 12. Hyperactive and headstrong, he lives in Bettendorf with his pharmacist mother, stay-at-home father and younger brother. They are a Catholic household, and Sean is an altar boy.
One day in school, Sean realizes he's checking out a boy. Sean asks himself: "Am I gay?" His answer: "Yes."
He tells no one.
Two years later: Sean is in ninth grade at Bettendorf High School. A classmate writes "HOMO" on Sean's backpack. His mother takes Sean to buy a new backpack.
They are driving home from the store. His mother asks, almost offhand: "Are you gay?"
Sean ignores the question.
"And then she asked me again," Sean said. "And I said, 'Yeah.' She said, 'That's cool.' I said, 'Don't tell dad.' And she said, 'Fine.' "
Mother and son go to Sean's bedroom, sit on his bed, cry together. His mother is shocked, but she doesn't want her vulnerable son to hear that. So she tells him she loves him.
"At that moment he was no different than he was the moment before," Mary Ellen Fritz said. "He was my son. And no matter the difficulties I had or the challenges he had ahead, I accepted him for who he is."
Sean gets his first boyfriend at age 16, comes out to his father at 17, goes to Indian Hills Community College at 18, takes an IT job at 19, goes to ISU at 23. His relationships never last longer than a month. He doesn't fit in with the "Will and Grace" version of gay culture. He has a scruffy beard, loves computer programming, and doesn't dress that well.
Then one summer day before Sean's senior year of college, another student "friends" him on Facebook.com. Sean and Tim talk on the phone. Their conversation turns intellectual - talking about artificial intelligence, Tim's genetics class, their favorite science fiction.
They set up a date.
A memory: Tim McQuillan is 12. It's New Year's Day 1999, cold and gray.
Tim has just returned from Des Moines where his dad, a bowling alley manager, lives.
The phone rings in his mother's home in Perry. She answers, and her voice sounds serious.
She gathers the kids. Their father, she tells them, has died of a heart attack. They cry.
The death of his father changes everything.
The hyper youngster who once bounced around the house pretending he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle disappears.
He turns inward. He buries his nose in old science fiction books written by authors like Jules Verne; he falls in love with the Internet.
Another memory a few years later: He's friends with a girl. He fears she wants to date. Instead, she becomes the first person he tells that he is gay.
"She was just like, 'Really? I would have never guessed,' " Tim said. "I've gotten that every time: 'I never would have guessed.' ... I don't use lip balm and hairstyling products. I'm not what people think when they think about gay guys."
When Tim is 15, his family moves to California, near gay-friendly Palm Springs. Yet Tim hasn't told his family he's gay, and he still doesn't fit in with the predominant gay culture.
He graduates from high school and is working an IT job when his older sister persuades him to enroll at ISU.
One summer day in Ames, he finds an interesting guy on Facebook.com. And they set up a date.
It's a Friday evening, July 2006.
Tim and Sean meet at Stomping Grounds Cafe in Ames. The past six days since their first date have been a whirlwind.
They've stayed awake nights, watching the science fiction series "Stargate," making each other laugh, chatting about everything and about nothing. Each has the tingly feeling, the euphoria of all being perfect in a young relationship.
On this night, a jazz band grooves at the cafe. At sundown, Tim and Sean leave for a stroll.
The evening is warm and humid. They walk toward a park, circle back to Welch Avenue.
Suddenly, Sean grabs Tim's hand.
"I was uncomfortable at first," Tim later says. "He let go. He didn't want to make me do something I didn't want to do. He let go, and then I felt stupid. Because there weren't that many people. I was thinking, 'Someone in those cars might recognize me!' I was completely paranoid. ...
"What's the use of being paranoid, if I really feel that I love him? And at that point, I did."
They talk of spending life together. They move in. At Christmas, Tim tells his mother he's gay. She cries, not from the news but because he had feared telling her.
And then, one evening in August, Sean hears that gay marriage has become legal in Polk County. He calls Tim's mother for permission to ask her son to marry him. Sean buys two gold wedding bands. He picks up Tim from work.
"Will you marry me?" Sean asks in the parking lot, a white rose in hand.
The next day, before the judge's ruling is suspended pending an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, they become the only same-sex couple to marry in Iowa.
Nearly five months later, Sean and Tim sit at a cafe and reflect on their marriage.
The months after the wedding were chaotic: A Labor Day honeymoon in Des Moines. A hectic week of fielding reporters' phone calls. Catching up on missed schoolwork. Falling back into smoking cigarettes because of stress. Reading angry comments about their marriage posted below news stories and in blogs, having those insults bring down their relationship, then finally learning to ignore it.
It wasn't until recently, after finals, after the holidays, after giving up smoking again, that they have been able to take a breath to reflect.
They say this: They never realized how much they wanted marriage until after they were married.
"I now realize how important marriage is," Sean said. "I've (known I am) gay since I was a teenager. Gay marriage was always something that's going to happen in the future, but I couldn't go get one, so it wasn't on the table. All the sudden it was on the table. And I got one. I was like, whoa, I really wanted this the whole time, and I was ready for it, and I just told myself I wasn't because it wasn't feasible."
"When we got married, I realized that made me an adult," Sean said. "Abruptly. ... And now I realize that probably has a strong influence upon what we call gay culture, the fact that it's comprised of people who don't consider themselves adults."
"You treat children like children," Tim interjects, "they're going to behave like children. If you treat them as adults and you expect things of them - it's totally an argument of what you expect out of someone. If they've never been expected to get married, they aren't going to. It's pretty harsh social conditioning."
But there's another thing. Because they're gay, they always have felt different from the mainstream. But they never felt part of stereotypical gay culture. They aren't artistic, they aren't bohemian, they don't identify with "Rent."
So part of what they want from their newfound status is to show a positive example for young gay men who feel lost, like they once were.
"Hopefully, someone reads this who is in the situation I was in," Tim said. "Someone who isn't sure about themselves. They don't think they'll be accepted by everyone. I'm not casting myself as an ideal role model. But I think there's some good out of letting people know our story."
Reporter Reid Forgrave can be reached at (515) 284-8260 or rforgrave@dmreg.com
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