One of the more dazzling contributions to homoerotic literature landed in the courts of Pennsylvania last week. The case of Egolf vs. Seneca described with vivid indignation the objections of 12 state legislators and a Bedford County plastics manufacturer, to an attempt by two gay men in Bucks County to purchase a marriage license.

The suit cites, among reasons for upholding the law, social prosperity, child welfare and the preservation of families.

In paragraph 28 the document exudes steam. The legislators assert that, "Human physiology is designed for sex between males and females." To establish this point they go into detail about the mechanics of anal sex and its risks. The tamest line in the paragraph would seem to be this one: "Even a woman who has sex with another woman is at substantial risk for sexually transmitted diseases."

How a court brief came to resemble "Letters to Penthouse" dates to 1996 and a heart attack.

In that year Egolf sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage in Pennsylvania as one man and one woman. That same year, Stahl was taken to the cardiac unit of St. Vincent's Medical Center in New York. Although Stahl and Seneca have lived as a couple since 1975, hospital officials would not give Seneca any information about his partner. He was, after all, not family.

"We knew something had to be done," Stahl said. As gays in Vermont and Massachusetts headed to altars, Stahl and Seneca thought they might find a welcome in their adopted home, New Hope. French painters settled there because it had perfect ambient light. New York writers, actors and directors gravitated there in the mid-20th century. Dorothy Parker and Oscar Hammerstein once trod its streets.

The duo visited the borough council, which unanimously passed a resolution calling on Bucks County to grant them a marriage license. Great ceremony went into the preparations for the trip to the courthouse in nearby Doylestown. Stahl and Seneca publicly suggested that, if turned away, they might appeal.

At the courthouse a clerk politely explained that Pennsylvania law specifically forbids such unions. Stahl and Seneca, who had been occupied with health matters in 1996, were unaware of Egolf's legislation.

Two months later, "a very sweet woman walked up to us and said, 'I'm really embarrassed to give you these papers.' " Seneca and Stahl were being sued. Employing the Alliance Defense Fund, an in-your-face Christian legal group out of Arizona, and a Lancaster county law firm headed by the chairman of the far-right Constitution Party, Egolf and 11 fellow legislators sued Seneca and Stahl.

Among plaintiffs are State Reps. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, and Tom Yewcic, D-Cambria. Joining the suit is the fascinatingly named Creative Pultrusions Inc., of Bedford County. They make plastic planks for heavy weather construction. These plaintiffs want a declaratory judgment that will prevent Seneca and Stahl from appealing their rejection at the marriage license office.

After reading 12 elected representatives' speculations on their sex lives, Seneca and Stahl went out looking for lawyers.

"This is an effort by our elected officials to intimidate citizens of the commonwealth," said Stacey Sobel, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. Sobel is a lawyer and her center, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Womens Law Prject, has taken up the case for Seneca and Stahl.

What riles Stahl, aside from the plaintiffs' seeming fascination with the mechanics of gay sex, is the preemption of rights conferred by the Constitution. The Bill of Rights is fairly specific in saying the citizens have a right to petition government for redress of grievances. It does not say they automatically win. Often as not, they lose. But it is unprecedented for a group to employ 12 legislators and, as the Alliance Defense Fund crowed on its web site last week, "go on the offensive ... and take the case to the radical homosexual activists rather than wait for them to file legal challenges to traditional marriage in state after state."

"We have done nothing so far as to appeal the decision that was given to us," Stahl said. "I find it extremely bizarre." That is not the point. ADF and its allies want to preclude this possibility. The message is clear: try to marry against our will and we'll sue you and make you spend your money on a lawyer. Never mind the government enforcing the law -- we'll do it for them, without being asked.

But first, they needed plaintiffs. This explains how a plastic decking company in Bedford County ends up suing two gay men from Bucks County. Bob Sweet, founder of Creative Pultrusions, is on the board of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. Leonard G. Brown III, one of the lawyers for Egolf and his cohorts, is a contributor to the Institute's journal. The other lawyer for the plaintiffs is Randall L. Wenger. Both lawyers are affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund.

"I met the lawyers and they were talking about the case and they were looking for a Pennsylvania corporation," Sweet explained. Hence Sweet, who has no idea whether he even employs a gay or lesbian, joined the suit expressing worry that such a theoretical marriage would harm his business by requiring that he pay benefits.

Wenger and Brown work for the firm of Clymer and Musser. The principal in that firm is Jim Clymer, chairman of the Constitution Party. To get some sense of his politics, consider two things: when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a Texas law criminalizing homosexual sex, the Constitution Party called for the impeachment of the majority of the justices; in 1996, the Constitution Party's candidate for Pennsylvania auditor general was the leader of the Keystone Militia. Wenger and Brown deflected questions to a spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is underwriting the suit.

Alliance has an annual budget of $15 million. Its founders include D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association. Kennedy has called the concept of separation of church and state "diabolical." Wildmon once forced a 3.5 second deletion in a Mighty Mouse cartoon claiming it showed the hero snorting cocaine. The Mouse was sniffing a flower.

Glen Lavy, senior counsel for Alliance, last week called Egolf vs. Seneca "a prototype. Other ADF allied attorneys across the country are considering similar lawsuits."

Replies Stahl: "At this point, I'm coming out fighting."

The same message could soon apply to other, less suspecting, gays and lesbians with the temerity to approach a marriage license office.

Dennis Roddy can be reached at droddy@post-gazette.com

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