'Tough guys' on gay marriage
Jesse "The Body" Ventura crushed gargantuan opponents in the pro wrestling ring, served as a Navy SEAL in the Vietnam War, and overcame daunting odds to become governor of Minnesota as a third-party candidate. Now, the cigar-chomping, tough-talking Ventura is enlisting in the latest culture war: the fight over gay marriage.
"Love is bigger than government," Ventura, taking a break from his studies as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said at a State House news conference yesterday. "Government should not have the right to tell you who you fall in love with and who you want to spend your life with."
Ventura, a self-labeled "libertarian with a small L" who left office after one term, was invited to speak by gay rights activists, along with fellow tough guy A. Joseph DeNucci, a former prize fighter who is now Massachusetts auditor.
DeNucci admonished lawmakers who hope to ban gay marriage by amending the Massachusetts Constitution, saying he knows from a childhood of being stereotyped for his Italian roots how painful discrimination can be.
Recalling a closeted homosexual opponent who was one of his toughest foes in the ring, DeNucci, a former state legislator, said, "They think all gay guys are sissies. . . . This guy was a great fighter. Actually, he was a deadly guy. Anyway, we clenched a lot. . . . I'm only kidding."
For many years Ventura expressed a belief that same-sex couples deserve expanded benefits and rights, but said that marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. "I looked up the definition of marriage in the dictionary, and it says `between a man and a woman,' " Ventura told the gay magazine The Advocate in a 1999 interview.
Yesterday, however, Ventura said that he has changed his mind. "So many words in our vocabulary get manipulated and misused down through history," Ventura said. "That's just how I feel about it. Again, it's a civil rights issue."
Ventura, 52, a Minneapolis native who was born James Janos, gained fame in the ring as a bruiser and as a color commentator who frequently donned a feather boa and pink jacket for the shock value. His longtime tag-teammate was "Adorable" Adrian Adonis, whose character eventually became homosexual to the horror of many of the World Wrestling Federation's faithful.
Appearing at the State House in blue jeans, a shaggy beard, and a Navy SEAL T-shirt, Ventura recalled a fellow wrestler who had a committed relationship with a same-sex partner but was denied the chance to sit by his bedside when he was ill in the hospital. Such a situation violated the couple's civil rights, he said. He noted that he opposes barring openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces.
"I'm a tough guy, I chew on cigars, I live life to the fullest," Ventura said. "But I don't like it when I see human rights violated. . . . We are not the Hetero States of America. America should be inclusive, not separating."
Since the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled on Nov. 18 that gays in Massachusetts cannot be denied rights to civil marriage, a slew of national figures have weighed in on the fight, including President Bush, who decried the four "activist judges" on the SJC who issued the ruling.
After Ventura spoke, Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said she welcomed the words of Ventura and DeNucci.
"Sometimes the message is who the messenger is," Isaacson said.
Ventura, a member of the Reform Party, may take his brand of politics on the presidential campaign trail. Asked if he harbored ambitions of becoming the nation's chief executive in 2008, Ventura said, "It's time to put a wrestler in the White House."
