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Love Makes a Family hosts equal marriage forum
Triangle Community Center an event co-sponsor
By JULIE WEISBERG / Monday, November 28, 2005
 Same-sex marriage and equal rights activists, while thankful for the hard work that led to the state’s General Assembly legalizing civil unions earlier this year, are urging Connecticut’s gay and lesbian community not to become complacent in the wake of their historic legislative victory.
“Connecticut set an example for the rest of the country, but our work – your work – in this state is not done,” attorney Evan Wolfson, executive director of the national equal marriage advocacy organization Freedom to Marry, told the more than 150 people who attended a Nov. 16 community forum on equal marriage at the First Church Congregational in Fairfield. “Connecticut, you have a responsibility to history: to fight and engage on the battlefield of marriage.”
The forum, which featured Wolfson as the keynote speaker, was organized by Love Makes a Family (LMF), Connecticut’s lead advocacy organization for same-sex marriage. The two-hour event was sponsored by more than ten civil rights and community organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, and the Triangle Community Center.
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“Those of us living in a state like Connecticut have a special obligation to move our country to a better place,” Wolfson said. “States like Connecticut have a special responsibility not to falter, not to flinch, not to lie fallow … if California’s legislature can vote in favor of marriage, so can the legislature in Connecticut.” |
Wolfson said Connecticut’s queer community must look for “profiles in courage,’ not “profiles in compromise,” as it continues to press forward on the issue of same-sex marriage in the Nutmeg state.
“Those of us living in a state like Connecticut have a special obligation to move our country to a better place,” he said. “States like Connecticut have a special responsibility not to falter, not to flinch, not to lie fallow … if California’s legislature can vote in favor of marriage, so can the legislature in Connecticut.”
Wolfson, author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay people’s Right to Marry, was named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2004. In addition to his work with Freedom to Marry, Wolfson was co-counsel in the historic Hawaii marriage case, contributed his expertise to the legal team in Baker vs. Vermont -- the Vermont Supreme Court Ruling that led to the creation of civil unions -- and assisted the GLAD team in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which led to marriage equality in Massachusetts.
Wolfson continually reminded the audience that state’s such as Connecticut, which has frequently been a leader in extending and protecting its residents’ civil rights, play an important role in the “patchwork” of progress toward equal rights for all Americans.
“If this fight here was just about Connecticut, it would be important,” Wolfson said, adding that a victory for Connecticut’s queer community is a step forward on the path of equality for gays and lesbians throughout the nation. “The sky doesn’t fall when people are treated right.”
The community forum, entitled “Civil Union Today; Marriage Equality Tomorrow,” featured a distinguished panel of local and national leaders in the movement for marriage rights for same-sex couples in Connecticut.
In addition to Wolfson, panelists also included Jennifer Gerarda Brown, a Quinnipiac College law professor and co-author of Straightforward: Mobilizing Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights, the Rev. Selena S. Blackwell, member of the CT Chapter of the United Church of Christ Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, and Transgender Concerns, and a member of the Coalition’s national council, as well as Jeffrey Busch, who, along with his partner Stephen Davis, is one of the seven plaintiff couples in the lawsuit filed by GLAD that claims Connecticut’s marriage law is discriminatory to gay and lesbian couples.
During the forum, all four panelists – including the forum’s moderator, LMF President Anne Stanback – discussed the importance of enlisting the support and assistance of straight allies in the fight for equal marriage.
Panelist Jennifer Gerarda Brown and her husband, Yale University law professor Ian Ayres, have been staunch allies in the fight for gay rights and equal marriage in Connecticut for the past several years. She urged queer activists to reach out to supportive members of the straight community.
“For every LGBT person, there are probably three or four non-gay allies ready and willing to assist in this struggle,” Brown said. “But they need help sometimes, they need a task.”
She added that often times the most powerful form of political persuasion is “private conversation,” whether it be between like-minded individuals or those who rarely see eye-to-eye on issues.
“We need to all realize that we have stories to tell, and we have to start telling them,” Brown said.
But panelist Jeffrey Busch said he is frustrated with the state’s new civil unions law. He told the forum’s audience that while he and his partner, Stephen, understand that the civil unions law passed by the General Assembly in March is an important step on the path toward equal marriage, the gay couple has been reluctant to enter into a civil union since the new law went into effect Oct. 1.
“(Stephen) loves me, not in a civil union kind of way, but in a marriage kind of way,” Busch said, adding that the work toward equal marriage has become “more important now than ever.”
Wolfson agreed.
“There shouldn’t be two lines at the town clerk’s office,” he said.
Stanback, however, said the state’s legislature lacks the “political will” to move forward on equal marriage while the dust is still settling on the hard-won civil unions victory. But, she said, the future of equal marriage looks promising for Connecticut’s gays and lesbians.
“By 2007, we are positioned very well for victory,” Stanback said, “one way or the other.”
Information: Love Makes a Family at (860)-525-7777 or lmfct.org, Freedom to Marry at freedomtomarry.org.
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