Gay Marriage: March 2007 Archives

I received the following email from Love Makes A Family. I am posting it here for your information. At the end is a full copy of General Assembly Bill 7395, “An Act Concerning Marriage Equality”, that will be proposed this session.

I heard the testimony of many who testified before the committee. What struck me was how many of the speakers were trying to deny that this struggle for marriage equality could not be equated or compared to the inequality black folks suffered before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I expected that.

What surprised me was how many legislators themselves completely denied that was true and stated that there was a direct connection to the two in that a segment of the population is being targeted for the purpose of exclusion from civil benefits afforded to marriage, thereby granting that segment second class citizenship. I’ve been saying that a long time, but it was really gratifying to hear so many state legislators bringing it up, and many of them are African American!

Very heart warming indeed.

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Yesterday the legislature’s Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on HB 7395, An Act Concerning Marriage Equality. The hearing lasted nearly 12 hours!

There was powerful testimony from a broad range of supporters.

View all written testimony from the public hearing
Watch the public hearing in its entirety at CT-N
Read the testimony of Love Makes a Family Executive Director, Anne Stanback

The arguments in support of marriage equality clearly won the day. But public testimony is not enough.

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The Judiciary Committee will vote soon. Legislators need to hear from their constituents. Please take a minute now to help move this bill to the full House of Representatives for debate.

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Love Makes a Family’s lobbying and outreach efforts are heating up. We estimate that it will cost $20,000 for this next push to make history and get our state’s FIRST successful vote on a marriage bill. We need YOUR support more than ever. Please consider making a secure on-line credit card donation today!

Full text of General Assembly Bill 7395:

It seems strange to me that the smallest thoughts can have such weight and importance to them. They pass quickly, but leave a footprint in your thoughts. You dismiss them, and they come back in your dreams. This keeps coming back in my dreams, but the origin actually happened at work.

I attended a meeting a week or so ago. We were sitting around a table talking about a problem we were trying to address. At some point I looked over at the left hand of a man attending the meeting. His hand was on the table, and clearly visible was his wedding ring. I briefly looked down at my notes, and my eyes moved over to my left hand, to view my wedding ring.

I lamented for a moment as I thought to myself, “His wedding ring is real. Mine is fake.” Of course, they are both solid, so they both physically exist. But perhaps what doesn’t exist for one of them is the most important. They are both gold, but they are symbolically very different. After all, gold is just gold. But the symbol of what something stands for surely outweighs anything monetary. There is no symbolism to my wedding ring, because our wedding never existed. Our rings are just what they are; gold. Nothing more.

Years ago, before the concept of marriage for gay couples happened, Kent and I went to Jolino Jewelers in San Francisco to pick out wedding rings. This was a courageous move on our part. We wanted to somehow show that we had a bond and we wanted to wear the symbolism of that bond on our hands. I don’t think either one of us realized how radical this was for a gay couple at the time. It just seemed logical to us.

We entered the jewelers, who was at the time in the Mission District in San Francisco. In those days, gay bashings were very frequent. They happened daily. I would hear of them, and occasionally, I would be helping a friend recover from what happened to him. We didn’t live far from The Castro, the gay neighborhood in San Francisco. But, we lived right on the edge of The Castro. One street over was the Mission District, and in those days, it was made up of a mostly Latino population. And, it was quite homophobic. To venture into this neighborhood was downright dangerous for gay people, and people in The Castro were warning gays not to venture into this neighborhood. But I felt we could do it because it was only a few blocks from our home. Those were the longest blocks I’ve ever walked in my life.

When we entered the store, we started looking at wedding bands. This young woman tried to help us, and even though she spoke English quite well, she could not understand what we wanted. She kept showing us wedding bands in male/female sets. I repeatedly tried to tell her that we wanted to buy two wedding bands for two men. She never got it. Fortunately, the manager overheard our conversation with her, and asked to take over. He understood what we wanted. It was uncomfortable. People were looking at us like we were aliens from another planet. It was the kind of awkwardness that comes from understanding that the manager was helping us because he wanted the sale, and was willing to overlook the fact that he was making the sale to what he would consider to be two perverts. The look on his face said it all. We of course were tense. We ordered the rings and left. He was clear that when we came in to pick them up, we were to talk to him and no one else. He did not want a scene.

This was the circumstance that we purchased our wedding rings. Not with celebration of joy, but with fear, shame, and a considerable amount of judgment being thrown at us.

When the rings came in, I stopped by to pick them up. I took them home, and we put them on. To me, they are a symbol of our love to each other. To my friends in the gay community, they simply did not get it. They felt that we were trying to be part of the straight community; a community that made no bones about hating us. That was the reality then. We were told that “marriage” did not exist for “people like us”. Still, we were unswayed by this.

We kept the rings on.

And later, our families made mention of the fact that we were wearing wedding bands for heavens’ sake, as if we were making a mockery of marriage and should be ashamed of ourselves. These accusations went unanswered by us.

We kept the rings on.

The rings were purchased in 1982. Kent and I have considered ourselves married since our days in college, from 1976 onward. We never had a wedding because weddings aren’t for “people like us.” We never told friends in college we were together because of fear. We had a fear of losing our friends, and we had a fear of violence. We were after all, still in Idaho. We were living in dorms on campus. And if this were happening today in Idaho, it’s not clear we could be honest and open with friends. We never had a wedding. We never had our joyous day. We never had a honeymoon. We never received gifts to help us get started in our life together. We had shame, contempt, and anger in it’s place.

We kept the rings on.

They are still on today. So when I looked down at the ring on my left hand in the conference room at work, I know I don’t have anything from society standing behind that ring. I know it has no symbolism. But it is my ring. It means nothing to anyone else but us. But, if nothing else, it has behind it, integrity. We have never once apologized for wearing the rings. We have never once apologized for what we have together.

And I’m left wondering how many straight couples, who take the task of buying wedding rings as one more part of the “getting married” thing, will ever have what we have. What their rings symbolize has the backing of the state, the nation, and the church. But did they ever consider that the simple act of buying a wedding ring could be an act that could end their life? If they knew that, would they risk it? For them, is buying wedding rings just one more task that has to be done as an after thought of “getting married”?

Then the question is asked, “Bill, what do you think about this?” I come out of my dream state and realize that I’ve relived half a lifetime of my reality in the last few seconds. And, I realize that my reality just simply can not be understood by the straight man sitting next to me with his lovely wedding band on his left hand.

I answer, “Could you please repeat the question?”