Marriage Equality & this Election

…which is something I’ve struggled with, figuring out where to seek change. Ultimately though, I think if you are going to do the right thing, it makes sense to try to do it across the board. On the state level we’ve seen “laboratories of democracy” in action with marriage equality in a few states (which are great guides on how it can be done), but ultimately it will be the national government that can create wide spread equality.

http://data.lambdalegal.org/publications/downloads/fs_make-change-not-lawsuits.pdf

I can’t tell you how many different groups have linked me to this article (without responding to my actual legal questions) about changing minds, not laws. But I want to change minds AND laws (hence my mentioning of seeking legal recognition of my marriage through the courts in NC, and the quote I used from Dr. King in that commentary).

For changing minds, that will come largely through activity on the local level, and some good examples of how that can be done are laid out in that article I just mentioned. And one example I like to give is employees asking for the updating of non-discrimination clauses in employee manuals like I did at the vet clinic where I work shortly after I was hired (which was kind of scary at the time because I hadn’t been living in this area all that long when I was hired, I’d never held a full time job before, and I had many perceptions of professional life that I brought with me from the socially conservative town of Mt. Airy aka Mayberry, NC where I grew up). I was a volunteer intern for the Jim Neal campaign both because he would have been great for the job, and because I liked the idea of NC being open to gay candidates, which with a quarter of a million votes against a state senator I’d say we made progress. I asked Kay Hagan at a public gathering about her positions on gay rights & marriage equality and made her lay them out in public and on the record, and later I contacted her campaign and got them to add the “GLBT for Kay” group to her campaign website. (she supports hates crime legislation, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, & so on)

I understand that many of those groups that linked me to that article don’t want to “waste” resources on North Carolina when they might have more success elsewhere and maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t consider pushing for equality and the recognition of MY upcoming marriage in MY home state as a waste. I also hold no ill-will towards those groups that directed me away from legal recourse, and none against Kay whose views might not be as progressive as I’d like, and I recognize these groups and candidates are very much my allies in this fight even if I have to nudge them a little bit to get them to act.

While I think a multilateral approach is best, I'm no expert on how to achieve this change, and entirely open to suggestions.

BTW that excerpt you is a powerful statement, especially the last two sentences… almost poetic.