The journalism blog Romenesko (2/12/13) reprinted a “Style Watch” memo from Associated Press standards editor Thomas Kent and standards deputy Dave Minthorn, dated February 11:
(Photo: Ben Salter)
SAME-SEX COUPLES: We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves “husband” and “wife.” Our view is that such terms may be used in AP stories with attribution. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.
In other words, AP wouldn’t refer to a man married to another man as his husband, or a woman married to another woman as her wife, unless it was in a quotation or otherwise attributed to someone other than AP. The intention was presumably to remain neutral on the issue of marriage equality—but this policy does take a position, indicating that no matter what their state government says, AP is not going to consider legally married same-sex couples to be really married.
Unsurprisingly, AP went back to the drawing board and produced a slightly different policy, apparently before the first memo was leaked to the public:
SAME-SEX COUPLES: We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves “husband” and “wife.” Our view is that such terms may be used in AP content if those involved have regularly used those terms (“Smith is survived by his husband, John Jones”) or in quotes attributed to them. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.
That’s an improvement, certainly, in that it allows AP to apply the terms usually used to described married people to men married to men and women married to women—but only if they can show that they “have regularly used those terms.” It’s odd to have a burden of proof in labeling marital relationships, and one expects that in many routine stories where a relationship is mentioned incidentally, reporters will not have a chance to ascertain the couple’s terminology history—and so, following AP style, husbands and wives will appear under the generic term “partner,” a term which in this context suggests a desire to avoid the messy question of marriage altogether.
Further, while it may seem polite to ask people what they call each other, in a news story “husband” and “wife” are not terms of endearment; they’re legal categories. When you mention someone’s father in a news report, you don’t call up the child to ask what they generally call him: Dad? Papa? Chief? You refer to the child’s father as a father, since that’s the standard term used for a male parent.
AP ought to have a rule that can be applied to all married people, regardless of whom they’re married to—rather than a separate-but-equal policy that applies only to those married to someone of the same sex.
Language is a virus
And homophobia is a disease
How about spouse and spouses?
Jim, as to your twitter entry a little while ago about “boys being ‘helped’ to keep up in school”. Why be so contemptuous of boys? They do learn somewhat differently than girls and many of the ways they learn have been removed from schools, intentionally or unintentionally due to technology, insurance, cost, etc. Labs, gone or shrunk; structured learning replaced by absorptive learning, gym, PC’d out of existence; industrial skills, segregated and demeaned. So lets not ‘help’ boys (a charity) lets ‘teach’ boys (a duty).
The Good-S-American has other priorities. Like Superman faced with people in peril and needing to be of assistance without noticing any-thing but the need. ” Newly formed union ” would suffice for The Virgin Mother, I think.
It doesn’t seem to me to be in “right field” to continue to use the terms husband and wife as they were “traditionally” used and understood. I don’t understand how people who disagree on this terminology are made to feel as if we are mean-spirited or as many on the left would say obtuse… when it doesn’t seem at base a denial of rights at all.. A husband for as long as I remember referred to a man in a relationship with a woman… If I resist the changing of this definition, but was open to civil unions way back, or healthcare issues way back, I really don’t see why I need to call a man’s male partner his husband in order to be their friend or have a conversation.. Sometimes it seems certain groups set up chasms when actually there is way way more agreement than you are suggesting in this article.
Let people be called as they wish to be called in their most intimate relationships.
maybe this story is not about legality; after all the terms “husband” and “wife” are not only legal terms but refer to gender; Maybe we need to start thinking about how we`re going to refer to partners in a same-sex marriage. See also: “widow” and “widower”
You say: “AP ought to have a rule that can be applied to all married people, regardless of whom they’re married to.” I agree – but what might such a rule be? Traditionally, “husband” and “wife” also mean “male spouse” and “female spouse.” But when it’s a same-sex couple, that connected meaning obviously makes no sense. In some same-sex couples, they think of one as “husband” and the other as “wife.” In others, they don’t: For one example, in a female same-sex couple I know, they each refer to the other as “my wife.” Should the AP put a label of “husband” on one? And which one? How would it know unless it knew “those involved have regularly used those terms?” Perhaps the suggestion made above here that AP should refer to everyone in all marriages as “spouse” would be a good one – but short of that, what would a new rule for AP be?
Since the terms “husband” and “wife” presuppose a gender asymmetry, I
suggest they are obsolete now that marriage does not entail one. Even
a heterosexual marriage may not fit the supposition of those words.
Thus, using “husband” for a male married person and “wife” for a
female one can also be misleading.
Why not switch to a single word that means “married person”, such as
“spouse”, and use it for all couples?
Seems the only base-level terms one could use without jumping through hoops are suggested by your last paragraph. A father is a father, and a mother a mother. A male married partner is a husband, and a female married partner is a wife.
Hence in a gay marriage, there are either two husbands, or two wives. Whatever terms the partners themselves might use are ONLY known by reference to THEIR OWN private decoding of the relationship. A reporter should not have to pry that far into the private lives of those he/she is reporting on.
If the partners themselves are THERE to ask (that is, if they have not both been killed in an accident, say), then ask them and use the proper terms, but if not, then use husband-husband, or wife-wife…
This puts the decision on the gender of the person in question (usually easy enough to determine…), and would not require knowing whether the relationship was gay or straight. A reporter who did NOT pry into that aspect of the relationship (I would prefer them not to pry, when the answer can’t have anything to do with a story) could still put out an acceptable story, using the proper terms.