Dine for the day

Julie Turkewitz has an article (with the usual can't-download-it video) in The New York Times about the issue of gay marriage in an unlikely place:

Tradition reigns on the Navajo reservation, where the words of elders are treated as gospel and many people still live or pray in circular dwellings called hogans.
The national debate over gay marriage, however, is prompting some Navajos to re-examine a 2005 tribal law called the Dine Marriage Act, which prohibits same-sex unions on the reservation. Among the tribal politicians who have said they are amenable to repealing the law is Ben Shelly, president of the Navajo Nation, who has said he will go along with a repeal if the Navajo Nation Council votes in favor of it.
And at least one Navajo presidential aspirant— Joe Shirley Jr., a former president who is running again— favors legalizing same-sex marriage. “Our culture dictates acceptance,” Shirley, 67, said of gay Navajos in a slow, grandfatherly tone during an interview. “They are part of our family, they are our children, and we don’t need to be partial.”
A second presidential contender, Chris Deschene, 43, who was disqualified from running but might be able to get back into the race, said he was "most likely" to support gay marriage.
To Navajo traditionalists, however, the rapid redefinition of marriage in states around the country has made the 2005 tribal law more important than ever.
“It’s not for us,” Otto Tso, a Navajo legislator and medicine man from the western edge of the reservation, said of gay marriage. “We have to look at our culture, our society, where we come from, talk to our elders. I do respect gay people,” he continued, but as far as permitting same-sex unions, “I would definitely wait on that.”
The Supreme Court is expected to decide this year whether states can prohibit same-sex marriages, a move with the potential to lead to the legalization of gay unions in all fifty states. But the ruling would not apply to the Navajo Nation, because the country’s 556 tribes are sovereign entities.
Leading the charge for gay marriage here is Alray Nelson, 29, a top aide to Shirley, the presidential contender. Nelson, who would like to marry his partner, Brennen Yonnie, has pushed for years to repeal the Dine Marriage Act and has a small coalition of core supporters, about fifteen of them, he said. But some gay Navajos, he said, have not joined the coalition for fear they will be ostracized.
Other gay tribal citizens say they support same-sex marriage but do not consider marriage rights a priority, pointing out that many gay Navajos suffer from drug abuse and debilitating depression.
Fixing these ills, said Jeremy Yazzie, 33, who counsels gay and transgender Navajos, is far more important. “Everyone is worried about repealing the gay marriage act,” Yazzie said. “That’s far from my work. How can we love somebody else if we can’t even love ourselves?”
Nelson and Yonnie, 29, a caseworker for the tribal welfare agency, could marry in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, the states that border the reservation, if they wanted. “These states surrounding the Navajo Nation are taking big steps forward — steps for equality,” Nelson said. “The Navajo Nation is not.” Nelson grew up in a mobile home on the reservation, tending sheep and doing homework by kerosene lamp. He came out in an email to his family in his early twenties, was largely accepted, and soon became a powerful force in reservation politics, working for two tribal presidents. He met Yonnie through Facebook about four years ago and they now live with Yonnie’s mother. “Marriage to me is security,” Yonnie said over dinner recently.
But Nelson’s efforts to sway legislators have been hindered by his damaged credibility. In 2011, he admitted to filing false claims to the police, saying he had been threatened because of his race and sexuality. At the time, Nelson said in a recent interview, he had been suffering from depression and stress after the death of a family member. “I did some stupid stuff and said some stupid things,” he said. But he has pressed on. In the last year or so, Nelson has attended five tribal meetings to argue for changes to the law; he has briefed tribal presidential candidates on the issue and attended community events to hand out information and ask people to sign cards pledging their support. Sometimes he is accompanied by other Navajos, but other times, he and Yonnie are alone. “In many ways, it’s just been Brennen and I,” Nelson said.
Most tribal lawmakers say they have other priorities; creating jobs, for example, or channeling electricity to those without it.
The nation’s tribes have taken varying approaches to same-sex unions. At least ten have affirmed the right of gay couples to marry under tribal law, sometimes doing so ahead of the state in which the tribe is located.
In 2009, the Coquille tribe in Oregon became the first Native American nation to recognize same-sex marriages, though the Oregon Constitution still prohibited such unions. Kitzen Branting, a member of the Coquille tribe who was 26 at the time, and Jeni Branting, then 28, were the first to wed in the state.
But the largest Indian tribes— the Navajo Nation, here in the Southwest, and the Cherokee Nation, in Oklahoma— have specifically prohibited same-sex weddings. Each tribe has about three hundred thousand citizens.
These laws will stand even if the Supreme Court decides that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, according to Lindsay Robertson, director of the Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy at the University of Oklahoma, because tribes were not signatories to the United States Constitution and are therefore not bound by it.
Gay Navajos tend to maintain a quiet existence here, connecting with potential partners on the Internet and coming out to their families, but keeping their sexuality largely private. In interviews, several said they would not hold hands in public. Others said they had endured taunts or even physical abuse in school or in their neighborhoods, leading to depression and attempts to harm themselves. Some had moved off the reservation to places where they felt more comfortable.
Central to the debate over same-sex marriage is the question of the role that gay people have played in Navajo history. Several historians, including Jennifer Denetdale, a member of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and a professor at the University of New Mexico, assert that gay and transgender people have long been part of tribal society, typically holding positions of great respect.
In an academic paper about the Dine Marriage Act, she recounted a traditional tale in which First Woman and First Man argue and set up camp on separate sides of a river, each accompanied by other members of their sex. The men were accompanied by nadleehi— men who dressed as women and took on feminine identities. “The nadleehi provided crucial domestic duties and provided an outlet for the men’s sexual desires,” Dr. Denetdale wrote.
Some opponents of gay marriage cite their attachment to local churches— which hold powerful sway here— as a reason to keep the Dine Marriage Act on the books. The Reverend Dale Jamison is a Roman Catholic leader whose church in Tohatchi draws about a hundred worshipers each Sunday. He said he could not imagine his congregants favoring gay marriage. “My people don’t necessarily want to talk about what they would consider Anglo, mainstream issues.”
At a beauty salon in Chinle, Arizona, about a hundred miles from Nelson’s home in Tohatchi, Jaye BTode, 55, dipped a client’s long tresses into the wash basin as she considered the issue. A photo of a Navajo supermodel hung by the door; music played softly in the background. “That’s not for us,” BTode said of gay marriage. “No, no, no, no.” Her client, Julie Begaye, 54, lifted her head out of the sink, shaking her wet locks. “That’s not our tradition,” she said. “If you want to do that, get off the reservation and do that somewhere else.”

Rico says this ain't over, but some people can laugh about it: