How Deep House Redefines Queer Love: Inside Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Unforgettable Story
Early in the first chapter, love lands on the page with poetic perfection: “You seemed more innocent but also somehow more broken–in than I was. You were so quiet, so nice. The type of boy that someone will always take under their wing. In a crowd, the one who is nearly overlooked, then identified as the best.”
And yet, this love is not that of fairytales. Mr. Lin met his partner in 1996, the same year when President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law. DOMA was a response to a case winding its way through the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, Baehr v. Miike, a case that seemed to signal to conservative onlookers that same-sex marriage could become a rapid reality. DOMA not only blocked federal recognition of any state’s same-sex civil unions, domestic partnerships, or marriages, but it also denied all federal benefits, including immigration, extended to marriage partners in binational relationships.
