Philocrites

Hillary and Julie Goodridge in 'People.'

by Philocrites

[Updates below.] Here's something you won't find everyday here at Philocrites: a recommendation to pick up the latest issue of People magazine. (That would be the May 31 issue, with Gwyneth Paltrow and her baby on the cover.) The photos from the marriage of Hillary and Julie Goodridge are priceless — and when will you see the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in People again? (Bill Sinkford and Kay Montgomery look good, too.) And, in case you missed it, the New York Times featured the couple's wedding announcement this weekend.

My officemates and I blew bubbles from our perch high above Beacon Street as the couple and their daughter, Annie, drove off in a blue VW Beetle — yup, it said "Just Married" on the back window and it was trailing cans. Sadly, our bubbles floated up and away over Boston Common, so I can't take any credit for the ones you'll see in the photo. What a glorious day that was!

Update 7.21.06: Bay Windows reported on July 20 and the Boston Globe followed up on July 21 with the news that the Goodridges have separated.

Update 7.23.06: In today's Globe, columnist Eileen McNamara writes about the terrific pressures the Goodridges have felt as the public face of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. These days, she writes, "a social movement gains legitimacy only when it can be personified on the cover of People magazine." But the price is very high.

It takes broad shoulders to carry a social movement. No single person, no single couple should bear that load alone, even symbolically.

More than 7,000 couples have married since same-sex marriage won legal recognition in Massachusetts. Most of those unions are the successful culmination of deep and abiding commitments. Some of those unions have frayed at the edges. But no marriage carried the dual pressure of private promise and public symbol as that of Julie and Hillary Goodridge.

("A heavy, symbolic load," Eileen McNamara, Boston Globe 7.23.06, reg req'd)

Update 2.3.09: The Boston Herald gets itself in a lather with its scoop that Hillary and Julie Goodridge have filed for divorce. Boston Phoenix media critic Adam Reilly says "the story isn't quite the scoop it pretends to be," since the Globe reported on the couple's separation more than two years ago.

Bay Windows editor-in-chief Laura Kiritsy also responds to the Herald's scoop: "Despite the Herald's assertion about the women not wanting to be 'poster partners for gay divorce,' they have actually modeled what a successful separation and divorce might look like — by staying out of the news, for instance — unlike messily divorcing heterosexuals such as Britney and KFed, Madonna and Guy, and Paul McCartney and Heather Mills."

("Landmark Jamaica Plain couple calls it quits," Laurel J. Sweet, Boston Herald 2.3.09; "The Herald's selective Goodridge scoop," Adam Reilly, The Phoenix 2.3.09; "Goodridges file for divorce," Laura Kiritsy, Bay Windows 2.3.09)

Copyright © 2004 by Philocrites | Posted 24 May 2004 at 5:43 PM

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