 Supporters of same-sex marriage gather in front of the Watauga County Courthouse on King Street Thursday to celebrate National Freedom to Marry Day. Photo by Alisha Park
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by JILLIAN SWORDS
News Reporter
Several students missed class Thursday because they were getting married on King Street.
In a festive, symbolic rally on National Freedom to Marry Day, seven same-sex couples and about two-dozen supporters congregated at Watauga County Courthouse. After a group ceremony presided over by a representative “preacher,” the couples joined the national call to request a marriage license from their local clerk of court.
As expected, under North Carolina statute, they were turned down.
The event had a
much more substantive purpose than the eye-catching tulle and rainbow
flags whipping in the wind from the shoulders of supporters. Its
organizer was Boone Impact, an organization formed in response to the
passage of Proposition 8 in California, which made same-sex marriage
illegal.
Deborah F. Hollingsworth joined the symbolic ceremony with her partner and is a member of Boone Impact.
“We have
zero rights given to us by the government. This is performance. We’re
doing it because this is what we have access to,” Hollingsworth said.
“We’re going to walk in and apply for licenses, and we know those
licenses won’t be approved.”
“We’re doing it because we don’t have access to what is behind those walls,” she added, pointing to the courthouse behind her.
English
graduate student J. Michael Dowdy was asked by Boone Impact, which he
is a member of, to officiate as the group’s representative justice of
the peace.
The
group asked him, “Because I feel strongly for equal rights. Because I’m
a white heterosexual male and I have all the rights in this country,”
Dowdy said. “We discriminate against people and act like it’s OK. And I
have 1,138 rights that people who are gay don’t have.”
The
“wedding vows” he read, written by English lecturer Dennis J. Bohr,
called for audience members to “speak now or forever shut the f--- up
about it and leave consenting adults alone to love each other as long
as they both shall want to.”
President
of the Sexuality and Gender Awareness, SAGA, club J. Keith Johnson,
senior history secondary education major, participated in the ceremony
with his partner.
He said the general public response was more positive than negative, with dozens of passers-by honking and waving.
Although he would consider entering into a civil union someday, “I don’t support the institution of religion,” he said.
He attended the rally to speak out against the multiple types of legal and social discrimination same-sex couples face.
Under
federal law, same-sex couples in long-term, committed relationships in
the United States pay higher taxes than those allowed to marry and are
excluded from pension benefits.
According
to the Human Rights Campaign, they also receive no Social Security
survivor benefits despite paying payroll taxes and can be denied the
right to visit one another in the hospital.
As
expected, all couples were turned away by Watauga County Register of
Deeds JoAnn Townsend, who cited state General Statue 51.1, which says a
marriage license may be issued in North Carolina between a male and a
female only.
Gay
marriage is currently legal in only Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Thirty states have laws banning same-sex marriage in their
constitutions.
Freedom
to Marry Day has been celebrated since the 1996 federal Defense of
Marriage Act (DoMA) that established the second-class status of
same-sex relationships.
The
transaction in the Watauga courthouse was cordial, and the couples
filed out once more, several saying they would be back when it was
legal.
Although
for some it was merely a demonstration and for others, more serious,
“that point is moot,” Hollingsworth said. “To me, marriage would mean
that I get benefits that my partner gets. To me, marriage would mean my
relationship is recognized in my family.
To me, marriage would mean a lot of stuff that doesn’t change after today. You know what I mean?”
“In some
way it was more than symbolic because it has started conversations
between my partner and I about how we can work within the legal system
that exists now to make our relationship more legitimate,” she said.
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