Photos by JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Chris Nichols was shocked to find that the Franklin News-Post had removed his name from the obituary of his partner, Tommy Campbell. The newspaper said it lists only family members.

Photo courtesy of Chris Nichols

Chris Nichols (left) and Tommy Campbell were together for 23 years. Campbell, 57, died last month of a massive heart attack.

The Franklin News-Post said it runs only the names of spouses and other immediate relatives in obits, including Tommy Campbell's.

REDWOOD -- In their 23 years as a couple, Chris Nichols and Tommy Campbell had never been harassed for being gay in this bucolic, live-and-let-live stretch of Franklin County. Nichols grows heirloom tomatoes and gives them away to the neighbors.

Campbell, a neighborhood handyman who took care of his 91-year-old mother next door, knew so many people that it took him three hours to get through the grocery store.

So Nichols was humbled, but not surprised, when more than 400 people turned out to pay their respects to Campbell, 57, who died July 25 of a massive heart attack.

What shocked him was opening up the July 28 Franklin News-Post to read Campbell's obituary -- only to find his own name omitted from the survivors' list. Nichols' world had already been upended by his partner's death, he said. "But this was like being knifed in the gut a second time."

Friends and relatives called and e-mailed to protest the newspaper's long-standing policy of printing only the names of spouses and other immediate relatives in their free obituary listings. Donna Essig, an owner of the Rocky Mount-based Ronile Inc. textile plant where Campbell worked, lodged complaints with the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality Virginia, a gay-rights organization.

News-Post Publisher Charles Boothe insists the policy does not discriminate against gay people, arguing that the omission was based on a legitimate attempt to limit the paper's free obits for consistency and space.

The free obits are limited by category of surviving family member, not a precise word count. "We don't include in-laws' names, or cats or dogs -- or partners; it has nothing to do with what sex they are, or what sexual orientation," Boothe said. "There's a list of things we don't put in and, again, that's simply designed to make the obits consistent and to be fair to the families."

The Campbell family was free to buy an obituary ad and write whatever they like, he added. Nichols said he would have been happy to pay for the obit, but no one at the paper or the funeral home informed him of that option.

The point of an obituary

Gay-rights supporters and media scholars alike take issue with the paper's policy. "An obit is meant to mark the passing of somebody, and if you can't include the most significant part of a person's life, then what is the point of an obit?" asked Kelly McBride, senior faculty for ethics at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

With an increase in the number of unmarried couples in general -- which surged to 5.5 million in 2000 from 3.2 million in 1990 -- McBride said that most American newspapers now allow families to list lifetime partners or significant others regardless of sexual orientation.

Among the dwindling number of newspapers that still run free obituaries, many opt to limit space by giving readers a set number of lines rather than specify which survivors can be listed, she added. "I just think there's so many ways that you can make the right policies that open up access to the news pages without making a political statement.

"I don't think you have to be in favor of legalizing gay marriage to let people mention their significant other in the obituary notice."

According to a 2002 survey by the Readership Institute, based at Northwestern University, space and revenue concerns have led most daily newspapers to run fewer, shorter free obituaries or shift them from unpaid news content to paid classified advertising. The Roanoke Times runs free, two-sentence death notices but charges $2.86 per line for family-submitted obituaries, which are generally unedited. Stories reporting the deaths of newsmakers or people of note are considered news content and therefore unpaid.

Industry standards

According to Virginia Press Association Executive Director Ginger Stanley, that is standard among Virginia's larger newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which have "very few restrictions" in their paid obituaries beyond copyright infringement or libelous statements. Smaller Virginia papers still offer space-limited free obits as well as wedding and birth announcements, but Stanley said the issue of including a same-sex partner has not emerged as an issue among member papers.

David Steinberg, president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, said his group hasn't been asked to dispute such a policy in the past five to seven years.

At Main Street Newspapers, which owns weeklies and biweeklies in Salem and surrounding areas, obituary listings including same-sex partners haven't been controversial. In fact, they've been nonexistent.

The newspaper group began charging for obituaries four months ago, but even when they were free, Publisher Rhonda Fleming said she couldn't recall an obit that included a survivor who was a same-sex partner.

"I would probably catch some flack about it from readers, but I certainly would not be opposed to" listing a gay or lesbian survivor, she said.

As layout editor Robert Fries put it: "You can do whatever you want -- as long as you pay. But if we did list [a survivor who was a same-sex partner], I just don't think it's such a big whoop anymore."

That's precisely what Lana Whited thinks -- and precisely why the Franklin News-Post's omission bothers her so much.

Whited, a journalism professor at nearby Ferrum College, says her main objection is the paper's assumption that "they know the prevailing sentiments of the community they're supposed to be serving.

"If the editors assume that printing Mr. Nichols' name would have violated the 'community standards' of the citizens of Franklin County, I think they underestimate the compassion of their readership," Whited said.