In June, 2000, South Florida Sun-Sentinel editor Mark Gauert courageously published this essay on the wedding of Steve Friess and Jim Richter as the cover story of its now-defunct Sunday magazine, Sunshine.

The piece garnered phenomenal response, nearly 1,000 e-mails, phone messages and letters -- unheard of in this day and age of distracted newspaper audiences supposedly incapable of sitting still for a lengthy story.

Indeed, despite its controversial topic and the largely elderly population of South Florida, all but a miniscule handful of those were praised this intimate essay. Many non-gay readers saw similarities to their own situations reconciling interracial or interfaith relationships with family discomfort.

Dozens of senior citizens wrote or called to speak of their own support for their gay or lesbian children or grandchildren.

The photos from the wedding were taken by Steve and Jim's close friend, Victoria Stagg Elliott, now a reporter with the AMNews in Chicago. Pictures not from the wedding were the work of Sun-Sentinel staff photographer Susan Stocker.

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