On Monday, when Judge Michael McShane overturned Oregon's ban on same-sex couples marrying, it was a victory ten years in the making. But for me, it was also the culmination of nearly 26 years in the trenches fighting for gay rights.
History is made through the concerted and cumulative actions of thousands. This is one woman's story - my story - of swimming in the rising tide of justice.
I officially came out as a lesbian in 1988 just months before the Oregon Citizens Alliance placed the first statewide anti-gay initiative on the ballot. I threw myself into that campaign as a full-time volunteer. We lost.
By the time the OCA was back with their first attempt to amend the state constitution to declare homosexuality "perverse and abnormal" and on par with pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality (no, I'm not making this up), I was the director of the statewide coalition of battered women's shelters and rape hotlines. Our coalition mobilized a base of opposition to the OCA's hateful measure in every one of Oregon's 36 counties, leading to the formation of the groundbreaking Rural Organizing Project, founded by my brilliant friend and comrade Marcy Westerling. The nearly two-year No on 9 campaign galvanized and strengthened our communities even as it deeply terrified and traumatized us. We won.
We won - but the OCA came right back at us with a sanitized version of the measure. The prior campaign had disbanded. We had to start from scratch. I left my job and devoted myself full-time to the idea that we could build a campaign-ready gay rights organization that would not only win at the ballot, but build the movement for social justice. I served as the deputy campaign manager for No on 13 in 1994. We won. And from our campaign, we created Basic Rights Oregon, the primary author of this week's victory, widely recognized as one of the most effective state LGBT organizations in the country.
When the OCA came back in 2000, we beat them again. But when another opposition group placed Measure 36 on the ballot in 2004, to amend our constitution to define marriage as "one man, one woman," we lost, along with the other 10 states facing similar measures that year.
The loss was particularly hard because the marriages the voters had chosen to snub had a face - over 6,000 faces, in fact. Earlier that year four courageous Multnomah County Commissioners, at the request of Basic Rights Oregon, had begun issuing marriage licenses, based on a legal opinion now validated by Judge McShane. Several counties followed suit and ultimately over 3,000 loving and committed same-sex couples wed.
History is made through the concerted and cumulative actions of thousands. This is one woman's story - my story - of swimming in the rising tide of justice.
I officially came out as a lesbian in 1988 just months before the Oregon Citizens Alliance placed the first statewide anti-gay initiative on the ballot. I threw myself into that campaign as a full-time volunteer. We lost.
By the time the OCA was back with their first attempt to amend the state constitution to declare homosexuality "perverse and abnormal" and on par with pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality (no, I'm not making this up), I was the director of the statewide coalition of battered women's shelters and rape hotlines. Our coalition mobilized a base of opposition to the OCA's hateful measure in every one of Oregon's 36 counties, leading to the formation of the groundbreaking Rural Organizing Project, founded by my brilliant friend and comrade Marcy Westerling. The nearly two-year No on 9 campaign galvanized and strengthened our communities even as it deeply terrified and traumatized us. We won.
We won - but the OCA came right back at us with a sanitized version of the measure. The prior campaign had disbanded. We had to start from scratch. I left my job and devoted myself full-time to the idea that we could build a campaign-ready gay rights organization that would not only win at the ballot, but build the movement for social justice. I served as the deputy campaign manager for No on 13 in 1994. We won. And from our campaign, we created Basic Rights Oregon, the primary author of this week's victory, widely recognized as one of the most effective state LGBT organizations in the country.
When the OCA came back in 2000, we beat them again. But when another opposition group placed Measure 36 on the ballot in 2004, to amend our constitution to define marriage as "one man, one woman," we lost, along with the other 10 states facing similar measures that year.
The loss was particularly hard because the marriages the voters had chosen to snub had a face - over 6,000 faces, in fact. Earlier that year four courageous Multnomah County Commissioners, at the request of Basic Rights Oregon, had begun issuing marriage licenses, based on a legal opinion now validated by Judge McShane. Several counties followed suit and ultimately over 3,000 loving and committed same-sex couples wed.
Becky, Ava & Mary Li-Kennedy Amber and I were among them. We had already pledged our commitment to each other in a DIY (do-it-yourself) ceremony before 100 family and friends on our fifth anniversary in 2001. (Read about that magical day, suspended midway between 9/11 and the day of my father's death.) To be honest, in the lead-up to the brief window in time when we could have the state certify what our community had already witnessed, my own marriage was not at the top of my mind.
I had been asked to recruit the very first lesbian couple who would wed. I approached my dear friends Mary Li and Becky Kennedy with an unconventional proposal. How would you like to make the history books? The only catch is, you can't tell anyone until it's a fait accompli. I played secret agent, transporting the "first couples" to get their licenses and on to the wedding venue. I held their daughter Ava, my goddaughter, as Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts pronounced them married in front of international news crews. A few days later Amber and I had caught our breath and added ourselves to the list of officially wed couples, before the courts closed the door to any further marriages.
Later that year when Measure 36 qualified for the ballot, we along with thousands of gay and straight Oregonians, yet again exhausted ourselves in a defensive ballot measure battle over our lives, our loves, and our rights. We lost. Soon after, our marriage was declared null and void.
I had been asked to recruit the very first lesbian couple who would wed. I approached my dear friends Mary Li and Becky Kennedy with an unconventional proposal. How would you like to make the history books? The only catch is, you can't tell anyone until it's a fait accompli. I played secret agent, transporting the "first couples" to get their licenses and on to the wedding venue. I held their daughter Ava, my goddaughter, as Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts pronounced them married in front of international news crews. A few days later Amber and I had caught our breath and added ourselves to the list of officially wed couples, before the courts closed the door to any further marriages.
Later that year when Measure 36 qualified for the ballot, we along with thousands of gay and straight Oregonians, yet again exhausted ourselves in a defensive ballot measure battle over our lives, our loves, and our rights. We lost. Soon after, our marriage was declared null and void.
Freedom to Marry staff with then Vice President Joe Biden Fast forward to 2014. My involvement has continued to be political, professional, and deeply personal. For the past three years I've worked as a part-time consultant to Freedom to Marry, alongside the nation's foremost message strategist, my dear friend Thalia Zepatos (who I met on that very first 1988 campaign). Since the Valentine's Day kick-off of the Oregon United for Marriage Campaign in 2013, I've conducted trainings, facilitated campaign events, co-organized one of the highest-dollar houseparties. And I approached the campaign with the idea of organizing Wedding Professionals United for Marriage, many of whom donated their services for the very first weddings conducted just minutes after Judge McShane lifted the ban.
I was one of those wedding pros. After volunteering for the campaign outside the County Registrar's office all morning, with nervous couples and campaigners awaiting the ruling, I hopped in a donated pedicab to the wedding celebration site where I joyfully officiated the weddings of some of those very first couples. After Portland Mayor Charlie Hales watched one of my ceremonies, he asked if he could borrow my script. I stepped aside to give the various VIP officiants their place at the front line of this historic moment and sat down for the first time in six hours.
What an amazing privilege, to have been witness to the very first wedding of a same-sex couple in Oregon 10 years ago, with my chosen family Mary and Becky and Ava, and now, again, to be able to celebrate and support the marriages of these beautiful couples who had chosen each other against all odds, cherished each other through years when the state dismissed their love, and now at last could hear one of their own, a lesbian Celebrant who had fought in the trenches for 26 years, say the words, "By the power vested in me by the state of Oregon...."
* * *
In the coming weeks I'll share more stories from these momentous times (including the most adorable cake toppers you'll ever see, and what Amber and I will do next, nearly 18 years into our love story).
I was one of those wedding pros. After volunteering for the campaign outside the County Registrar's office all morning, with nervous couples and campaigners awaiting the ruling, I hopped in a donated pedicab to the wedding celebration site where I joyfully officiated the weddings of some of those very first couples. After Portland Mayor Charlie Hales watched one of my ceremonies, he asked if he could borrow my script. I stepped aside to give the various VIP officiants their place at the front line of this historic moment and sat down for the first time in six hours.
What an amazing privilege, to have been witness to the very first wedding of a same-sex couple in Oregon 10 years ago, with my chosen family Mary and Becky and Ava, and now, again, to be able to celebrate and support the marriages of these beautiful couples who had chosen each other against all odds, cherished each other through years when the state dismissed their love, and now at last could hear one of their own, a lesbian Celebrant who had fought in the trenches for 26 years, say the words, "By the power vested in me by the state of Oregon...."
* * *
In the coming weeks I'll share more stories from these momentous times (including the most adorable cake toppers you'll ever see, and what Amber and I will do next, nearly 18 years into our love story).
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