Hello, young gay lovers, wherever you are. If you are heading toward the altar, the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor N Convention Bureau wants you! That is, they want you to get married in fabulous, homo-hatin', Laguna Beach-acceptin', Belmont Shores nearin', closeted-gay legislatin' Orange County.
It's rainin' men, and they're all driving Lexuses!
“With the recent ruling by the State of California's Supreme Court, we anticipate that many event locations and hotels throughout Anaheim/Orange County will benefit from the increased interest of those wanting to marry here,” said Charles Ahlers, the convention bureau's top, er, head, um, president. “Our destination has been the site of an array of ceremonies and celebrations for decades. We're ready to host even more!”
Are you listening, Reverend Lou?
Why, same-sex ceremonies have been held here forever, despite actual legal weddings being verboten until quite recently.
]
“Our owner June Neptune firmly believes that weddings are about love and commitment between two people,” said Bobby Fader, general manager of Laguna's Tivoli Terrace and Tivoli Too. “We have been hosting commitment ceremonies for over 20 years. Couples have been choosing our venue because we have beautiful, unique and intimate garden settings in Laguna Beach and Santa Ana with a friendly staff to make their planning easy and stress free. So many people contact us because you can't beat the beautiful picturesque beach towns of Orange County.”
HOLLA!
To be sure, it is refreshing that the visitor bureau is opening its arms to gay couples — if a visitor bureau even has arms. Their release goes so far as to list local hotels and resorts that gay couples can consider booking (as they fall in the only income group that can afford them), and several postcard-perfect spots for homo-matrimony are outed, including McCharles House in Old Town Tustin, Mission San Juan Capistrano, Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin, Sleeping Beauty's Castle at the end of Main Street USA, the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach and, of course, The Boom.
OK, Clockwork threw in that last one for gits and shiggles. We're not even sure the Boom Boom Room even exists anymore. We do not!
Amid all this, what's the word?, oh yes, joyity, we must warn to be careful what you wish for. As that old Chinese proverb goes, “When the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor N Convention Bureau starts going after gay and lesbian couples, divorce lawyers can't be far behind.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.