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Two
Navy Vets Wed
in
Native American Ceremony
by
Denny Meyer |
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Two Navy
veterans, Gene Barfield and his Native American
partner Tim LaCroix were married on March 15th
by the sovereign nation Little Traverse Bay
Bands of Odawa Indians, complete with
traditional drums and song.
In a
traditional Native American wedding ceremony the
two men were cleansed with burnt sage and tied a
bough into a circle to signify their union,
according to
petoskeynews.com.
Aside from
marrying a royal prince, perhaps, 'dreams come
true' don't get any better than this. How
right and fitting it is that the original people of this land should implement equality
ahead of the federal government and the State of
Michigan, within which this first nation tribe
resides.
Gene and
Tim met while serving in the US Navy; they were
married this March on their thirtieth
anniversary together. According to Gene
and Tim's press release:
On Friday morning, March 15, 2013, Tim
LaCroix and Gene Barfield, both of Boyne City MI, became the first same-sex
couple legally married within the State of Michigan.
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The ceremony took place at the
government headquarters complex of the Little Traverse
Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBB), a
federally recognized tribe of Native American people.
Tim is a tribal citizen, and Gene, his
partner of 30 years, became his legally wed
non-tribal spouse under the laws of the tribe.
The tribal law permitting marriage of
same-sex couples was only recently passed by a 5-4 vote of the LTBB Tribal Council. Tribal
Chairman Dexter McNamara signed the legislation into law at tribal
government headquarters in Harbor Springs, MI. the
signing ceremony was followed immediately by
Tim and Gene’s marriage ceremony. Tribal Chairman
McNamara agreed to
officiate, as authorized under the new tribal law. The
marriage event included traditional
Native American ceremonies at the couple’s request, as a gesture of their great thanks to the
tribe for making the couple’s marriage possible, and to
honor the Odawa people and all Native American
and First Nation communities. |
Under the provisions of a referendum
held some years ago, to amend the Michigan State Constitution, Tim and Gene’s marriage
will not be recognized under present Michigan law. Since the Little Traverse Bay Bands of
Odawa Indians is a sovereign Native American tribe under federal law, their marriage will
have equal legal standing with those performed in states where same-sex marriage is legally
sanctioned, and among the people of the other Native American tribes and foreign countries
that have sanctioned same-sex marriage so far.
Tim and Gene are both honorably
discharged veterans with a total of eighteen years service in the U. S. Navy.
Tim LaCroix, 53, is a native of the
Boyne City, MI area. The town of Cross Village, Michigan
was named after his
ancestors. His forbearers in the region were among the
first settlers in present-day Charlevoix
County, and delivered United States Mail by canoe around
the Little Traverse district. Stories of
these people are recorded in the well-known books Little
Mossback Amelia and Indian Drums.
After graduating from high school Tim
enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served as a Yeoman
for eight years; as an Admiral’s Yeoman, on the personal staff of Rear Admiral Pete Conrad, famous as an American astronaut; and aboard the cruiser-destroyer USS BELKNAP; aircraft carrier USS EISENHOWER; and
the fast attack submarine USS
PHILADELPHIA. He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal
three times during his service. He completed his
service as a Yeoman First Class.
After leaving the Navy Tim moved with
Gene to Vermont. There he became
active in the statewide LGBT civil rights movement as a founding member of Vermont C.A.R.E.S.
(Vermont Committee for AIDS Resources, Education & Services),
and in the
multi-year lobbying effort that led to passage of
Vermont’s Civil Rights Act of 1992. At the same time he became involved in the decades-long battle to
end discrimination in the Armed Forces based on sexual orientation.
After training
at the Vermont State Police Academy, and at the United States
Law Enforcement Training Center at Glencoe, Georgia, he served as a senior investigator at the
Vermont Department of Banking and Insurance. He
also served as a volunteer staff member of a battered women’s shelter, at the Central Vermont Council on Aging, the Central Vermont Humane Society, and at the Washington County (VT) Mental Health
Association.
After relocating to South Florida with
Gene, Tim served as an investigator in the Florida Comptroller’s Office dealing with white
collar crime and then as a Senior Fraud Investigator on the staff of the Florida Attorney
General’s Medicaid Fraud Unit. After they moved to Michigan he helped create the Regulatory
Department of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and served as head of the
Tribe’s Compliance Division at Victories Casino,
among other duties.
Later, Tim pursued a longtime wish to study horticulture and landscape design. He served
on the board of Northern Shores Loan Fund and later was an auditor at local
resorts and as a specialist at a local outdoor and
garden supply center.
Tim has been a subject in Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians In The U.S. Military by Randy Shilts,
and Playing By The Rules by Justin Crockett Elzie, SGT(Ret.), USMC.
Gene F. Barfield, 60, graduated from
Long Island's Bay
Shore High School in 1970, where as editor of The
Bridge, newspaper of the Masonic Order of DeMolay in
NY, he interviewed prominent members including Walter Cronkite and J. Edgar Hoover.
He went to Wagner College on Staten Island, in New
York's harbor.
In the Navy, Gene became a Machinist’s Mate in the Naval Nuclear Power
Program. He served aboard USS NATHANAEL GREENE, a
fleet ballistic missile submarine where, in addition to
his regular duties he served as a trained substance
abuse counselor and editor of the ship’s newspaper.
When Gene declined to accept a
medical discharge due to a significant hearing loss in
both ears, he was reassigned duty as a Personnelman and
served aboard Fleet Light Air Attack Squadron 72
(VA-72), Thus having served aboard both
a submarine and in an air squadron. At VA-72 Gene was
promoted to Petty Officer First Class, and held
additional duties as a nuclear weapons loading team
leader, and Squadron Operations Supervisor. Next, Gene
received advanced training as a Personnelman Classifier,
and served at the
Recruit Training Command Orlando, Florida. While there,
he was recruited by the staff of the Commander, U.S.
Naval Reserve to be transferred to active duty as a
Reservist, serving on independent duty as the
representative of Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve in the
southeast U.S., under the Recruiting Command. Gene was
awarded the Naval Recruiting Command Gold Wreath for
Excellent Performance along with other commendations.
It was while stationed in Orlando, on
March 1st 1983, that Gene met Tim who was also an active
duty sailor, and they have been together
ever since.
After leaving the Navy, Tim and Gene
moved to Vermont where
Gene served
as statewide president of Vermont’s first lgbt
organization for military veterans. Instrumental in the
passage of Vermont
civil rights legislation
outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation, he
and Tim were present at the bill signing ceremonies by
Governor Howard Dean. He was a founding
member of Vermont C.A.R.E.S. (Vermont Committee for AIDS
Resources, Education & Services). At the same time
Gene studied at Norwich University (a/k/a The Military
College of Vermont, Northfield, VT), from which he
graduated magna cum laude in 1990 with a Bachelor
of Arts degree in History. He was the first openly gay
person to graduate from Norwich. In 1992, he earned an
MS degree in Historic Preservation at the University of
Vermont in Burlington. He has since worked in that field in
various places around the nation.
Around the time of U.S. build-up to
the Persian Gulf War, Gene joined a small number of LGBT
military veterans around the U.S. as they began creating
a national movement dedicated to ending the ban on
military service by openly LGBT Americans. Including
writing, publishing and speaking on that subject, many
trips to Washington, D.C. to lobby the Congress and
White House on that issue and AIDS awareness, Gene also
served as national secretary and national president of
Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans of America (GLBVA,
which later became American Veterans For Equal Rights) and as editor of
its news publication The Forward Observer. He also served
as National Coordinator for military and veteran
participation in the 1993 March on Washington.
After they moved to Miami, FL in 1996
Gene became the Director of the Historic
Preservation Division in Miami-Dade County’s Office of
Community and Economic Development. He created and
ran FEMA's first targeted disaster recovery program
for historic sites in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew
in 1992.
When Tim and Gene were offered an
opportunity to buy a farm then owned by Tim’s uncle,
which had been in his family for generations, they moved
to Tim’s home state of Michigan where they now
live.
Gene has been a subject in The Quilt: Stories From The NAMES
Project by Cindy Ruskin, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays &
Lesbians In The U.S. Military by Randy Shilts, and
Playing By The Rules by Justin Crockett Elzie, SGT(Ret.),
USMC. He wrote a Simonton Prize-winning
essay on theater organ preservation in
Theater Organ Magazine (American Theater Organ Society)
in
2005.
Tim and Gene live on
their 30-acre farm outside Boyne City, with their
two dogs and cat, keep up an extensive garden plot, and
spend time working in their well-equipped wood shop and
on their model railroad. Gene says that Tim is an
outstanding cook, while he is 'an outstanding
culinary sampler.'
In an interview with CNN.com, Gene was quoted as
saying, "We served our country to uphold those people's
rights to protest our right to get married ... If you're
good enough to bear arms for your country or to die in
some lonely valley in Afghanistan, you're good enough to
come home and get married."
In their own press release, Gene and Tim wrote, in
part:
Between us, we have given eighteen years
of honorable service to the United States, in the U.S. Navy. In that time and since we
did not ever stop to consider whether we should offer service to the nation only to benefit
and defend some of America’s people. The blessings of freedom, dignity and liberty are meant
for all people without exception. This is something we are each taught at the youngest age,
when we first learn the great words of our founding documents, the Declaration of
Independence and the United States Constitution.
As our first act as a married couple, as
military veterans we publicly and respectfully salute Native American and First Nation
people everywhere, and join with all people throughout the State and nation who understand and
support the fundamental purpose of marriage, which is to create and sustain a community of
stable, happy families as the basic building block of a strong and thriving nation. We
respectfully ask our neighbors throughout this state and elsewhere across the nation, to embrace
the wisdom and generosity of the Odawa people, and to take all steps necessary to ensure the
equal provision of happiness, security and equality to
every American household.
(See a
Petoskey News video by Brandon Hubbard, of the signing,
ceremony and song at:
http://www.petoskeynews.com/videogallery/74884768/News/VIDEO-Little-Traverse-Bay-Bands-of-Odawa-Indians-legalize-same-sex-marriage-marry-first-couple
)
© 2013
Gay Military Signal |
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