Timbre of a TimeFree Mind
Kevin and Darren live in Portland Oregon and are a gay, committed couple. We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all...regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race, nationality, financial status, and being. Erase man-made borders and "they" become "we". New Site: HERE.Tuesday, October 5
Taking gay marriage on the road
[SFGate.com]
Forty-four people. Nine white wedding gowns. One hundred thirty-two political T-shirts. Almost $100,000 of funds raised. Two documentary filmmakers, three clergy people, 10 gay and lesbian couples married in San Francisco, one gay couple married in Massachusetts. One bus, rented for $26, 000. Eight days, 11 stops.
The National Marriage Equality Express, festooned with paper wedding bells, left Oakland early Monday morning for a field trip of massive proportions. Singing a repertoire of wedding-themed songs they're sure to tire of over thousands of miles, the crew of cheery riders boarded the bus in the dark, headed past fog-cloaked hills and began their journey across the country.
The 44 riders are headed toward Washington, D.C., for an Oct. 11 rally for same-sex marriage. In between, their primary plan is to "inspire justice" and show a little San Francisco-style love and activism to both supporters and naysayers in parts of the country where Gavin Newsom isn't a hero and sourdough bread isn't a particular point of civic pride.
The riders are a motley crew, including an elevator mechanic, a military veteran, a psychologist and two Unitarian ministers. Also on the bus are: Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking the right for same-sex couples to marry in California; Jim and Eve Lubalin, the parents of a lesbian, who have been married 40 years; and Martha McDevitt-Pugh, an American woman who moved to the Netherlands -- it was the only way she and her Australian partner found to legally stay in the same country -- but flew home for the bus ride.
The caravan stopped in Sacramento and Reno on Monday. It will hit Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyo., Denver, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus and Akron, Ohio, and Pittsburgh before landing in Washington just in time for National Coming Out Day.
'Go educate people'
"If everyone meets people like you across the country, marriage equality will be a reality very soon. ... Go educate people," said Oakland City Councilman Danny Wan, who was there to wish the crew bon voyage. "Please send a postcard."
With that, the riders packed up their signs and snacks and pillows and drove off into the big, bad world outside the Bay Area bubble to get a taste of how the rest of the country thinks about them and their notions of walking down the aisle man-by-man and woman-by-woman.
First stop: Sacramento. In the shadow of the Capitol building, the group held its first rally of the trip before a crowd that topped out at 40, if that. "Gov. Arnold, you can, you will, please sign the marriage bill," they chanted, referring to the Marriage License Non-Discrimination Act that Assemblyman Mark Leno will re-introduce in the Assembly this year.
"You are right, you are loved and you will prevail," Kathleen Montgomery, the president of the Sacramento chapter of the group Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, told the crowd. She said her son fell in love with a Portuguese citizen but can't sponsor him for U.S. citizenship as he could if he were straight and married. "They are united by love," she said, tearing up, "but separated by a continent and an ocean. To deny my son the right to build a life with the person he loves isn't just unfair ... it's cruel."
While caravan riders and local supporters spoke, members of the crowd traipsed up to sign a long paper scroll -- a letter to President Bush asking him to reconsider his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would change the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Then Molly McKay, a trip organizer and associate executive director of Marriage Equality California, presented the city with a care package of books, videos, T-shirts and other materials wrapped in a box that read "To Sacramento with California love."
"I think they're brave," said Kirsten Bosch, 33, a software developer watching the rally. "It's not easy to travel across the country. They're going to places where they're not wanted at all."
They were less wanted -- largely ignored, really -- at the next stop, in Reno. Word hadn't quite gotten out about their cross-country adventure, and the few people who showed up for the speeches on the steps of the city's federal building and courthouse all were from the media.
'Go back to Frisco'
No mind. The activists said their piece, had the planned "kiss-in" -- mostly tame pecks -- endured a snarled "go back to Frisco" and marched gamely around the block.
The big Reno excitement came on the way out of town, when three same-sex couples from the bus -- dressed in tuxes and a wedding dress -- ran into the Silver Bells Wedding Chapel and asked to get married. For heterosexual couples, it's typically a 45-minute job.
Receptionist Sandy Chamblin looked a bit confused. She smiled, sort of.
"We can't do that," she said.
"How come?"
"Because it's not legal."
"We'd like to make it legal."
She listened politely to their stories -- the years that they'd been together, that they just desperately wanted to protect their relationships. Then she said it again: "We can't do that here."
She still looked a little stunned after they left. "They seemed nice," she said, "but I was a little uncomfortable, because that's not what I believe in. I know it's in the Bible somewhere."
Forty-four people. Nine white wedding gowns. One hundred thirty-two political T-shirts. Almost $100,000 of funds raised. Two documentary filmmakers, three clergy people, 10 gay and lesbian couples married in San Francisco, one gay couple married in Massachusetts. One bus, rented for $26, 000. Eight days, 11 stops.
The National Marriage Equality Express, festooned with paper wedding bells, left Oakland early Monday morning for a field trip of massive proportions. Singing a repertoire of wedding-themed songs they're sure to tire of over thousands of miles, the crew of cheery riders boarded the bus in the dark, headed past fog-cloaked hills and began their journey across the country.
The 44 riders are headed toward Washington, D.C., for an Oct. 11 rally for same-sex marriage. In between, their primary plan is to "inspire justice" and show a little San Francisco-style love and activism to both supporters and naysayers in parts of the country where Gavin Newsom isn't a hero and sourdough bread isn't a particular point of civic pride.
The riders are a motley crew, including an elevator mechanic, a military veteran, a psychologist and two Unitarian ministers. Also on the bus are: Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking the right for same-sex couples to marry in California; Jim and Eve Lubalin, the parents of a lesbian, who have been married 40 years; and Martha McDevitt-Pugh, an American woman who moved to the Netherlands -- it was the only way she and her Australian partner found to legally stay in the same country -- but flew home for the bus ride.
The caravan stopped in Sacramento and Reno on Monday. It will hit Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyo., Denver, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus and Akron, Ohio, and Pittsburgh before landing in Washington just in time for National Coming Out Day.
'Go educate people'
"If everyone meets people like you across the country, marriage equality will be a reality very soon. ... Go educate people," said Oakland City Councilman Danny Wan, who was there to wish the crew bon voyage. "Please send a postcard."
With that, the riders packed up their signs and snacks and pillows and drove off into the big, bad world outside the Bay Area bubble to get a taste of how the rest of the country thinks about them and their notions of walking down the aisle man-by-man and woman-by-woman.
First stop: Sacramento. In the shadow of the Capitol building, the group held its first rally of the trip before a crowd that topped out at 40, if that. "Gov. Arnold, you can, you will, please sign the marriage bill," they chanted, referring to the Marriage License Non-Discrimination Act that Assemblyman Mark Leno will re-introduce in the Assembly this year.
"You are right, you are loved and you will prevail," Kathleen Montgomery, the president of the Sacramento chapter of the group Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, told the crowd. She said her son fell in love with a Portuguese citizen but can't sponsor him for U.S. citizenship as he could if he were straight and married. "They are united by love," she said, tearing up, "but separated by a continent and an ocean. To deny my son the right to build a life with the person he loves isn't just unfair ... it's cruel."
While caravan riders and local supporters spoke, members of the crowd traipsed up to sign a long paper scroll -- a letter to President Bush asking him to reconsider his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would change the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Then Molly McKay, a trip organizer and associate executive director of Marriage Equality California, presented the city with a care package of books, videos, T-shirts and other materials wrapped in a box that read "To Sacramento with California love."
"I think they're brave," said Kirsten Bosch, 33, a software developer watching the rally. "It's not easy to travel across the country. They're going to places where they're not wanted at all."
They were less wanted -- largely ignored, really -- at the next stop, in Reno. Word hadn't quite gotten out about their cross-country adventure, and the few people who showed up for the speeches on the steps of the city's federal building and courthouse all were from the media.
'Go back to Frisco'
No mind. The activists said their piece, had the planned "kiss-in" -- mostly tame pecks -- endured a snarled "go back to Frisco" and marched gamely around the block.
The big Reno excitement came on the way out of town, when three same-sex couples from the bus -- dressed in tuxes and a wedding dress -- ran into the Silver Bells Wedding Chapel and asked to get married. For heterosexual couples, it's typically a 45-minute job.
Receptionist Sandy Chamblin looked a bit confused. She smiled, sort of.
"We can't do that," she said.
"How come?"
"Because it's not legal."
"We'd like to make it legal."
She listened politely to their stories -- the years that they'd been together, that they just desperately wanted to protect their relationships. Then she said it again: "We can't do that here."
She still looked a little stunned after they left. "They seemed nice," she said, "but I was a little uncomfortable, because that's not what I believe in. I know it's in the Bible somewhere."
posted by jikido # 8:53 AM 
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