Monday was Equality Day. Religious Coalition for Equality and Equal Rights Washington sponsor a rally at the state capitol to ask the legislators to legalize same-sex marriage. First we rallied on the steps with a very loose service with song, sermons, and big cheers for our supporters in the House and Senate! We closed with a call on the shofar. Then the crowd dispersed to find their individual legislators and talk to them personally. We asked the congressman or senator to support the current bill to create civil unions, and in addition we hope they will sponsor a bill next year to legalize full marriage rights.
We are mainline christians, unitarians, jews, and a few other faiths thrown in (Blessed be!) We dressed like we were going to church. A few were even dressed for a wedding!
BREAKING NEWS!! The Washington State senate passed the civil union bill!!! Hallelujah!!
I just got an email that says:
(from Equal Rights Washington) ERW has wonderful news to report! Only 72 hours after Equality Day, the Domestic Partnership bill easily passed the Senate floor.
The bill has enough sponsors to pass through the House, and the Governor has already stated she'll sign it when it lands on her desk. This is a truly historic moment for the LGBT community and the allies, clergy, and people of faith who supported the legislation. Thank you to all the volunteers and co-sponsors who contributed to and helped out with Equality Day. And a special thank you to Senator Ed Murray, whose stewardship of this important bill was paramount to its passage.
Now back to the diary... wow, that is exciting!!
Here we are, 2,000 strong on the capitol steps.
In this picture: WA state legislator, Methodist minister (and her daughter), Unitarian Minister, Baptist Minister(obviously not Southern!) and Rabbi from Everett.
My district is the 43rd, so I joined the group that was going to see Jamie Pedersen. He's a lawyer who represented the 19 same-sex couples who challenged Washington State's DOMA. He just started his new job as state representative a few weeks ago. We asked him some questions, and he was very sharp and on message. A doctor explained that we need marriage equality very badly in the arena of life-threatening illnesses. The law forces him to call the next of kin. Often that's some blood relative that has not been in contact with the patient for many years. Meanwhile there's a distraught partner who knows everything about the patient's medical history just bawling in the waiting room.
Here are some of the things Jamie said (combining public speech with what he said in his office):
The laws for civil unions are many pages long - but a marriage equality bill is only a few short paragraphs. It would simplify everything enormously.
We asked him what the opposition had to say: They often say some nonsensical things. He once heard an anti-marriage speech saying, "You can't have same sex couples. That's like mixing chocolate with chocolate. You want to mix chocolate with something else, like raspberry." (huh?) But their main argument seems to be this: if we let <them> get married, then two elderly sisters living together will not have the same rights. However, elderly sisters DO have many of these rights already, because they are the next of kin!
What we can do: A representative from a conservative district voted for the GBLT anti-discrimination bill. She got 3,000 emails full of spiteful hate. How many thank-you's did she get? zero.
Immediately after any GBLT-rights bills are passed, the oppostion will try to get initiatives on the ballot to nullify them. So it is really important to change the perception on the ground. Keep talking to people. Tell them your stories.
(Here's a link to a video the RCE made.)
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If you are a hair-trigger athiest, I bet the next part of this is going to annoy you. But I'm putting it in the diary anyway so you can see a little bit about how we think, and let me emphasize that we do not even know what conservative Christians are thinking or saying. We don't hang out with them hardly at all. They are just very confusing to us.
Dr. Stephen Jones of First Baptist in Seattle gave a very inspiring speech about marriage. He finished by reading the vows he says for ALL couples. It was beautiful all the way through but I forgot everything except the last line:"You are now married in the eyes of God."
We sang "We are walking in the light of God" so loudly that every office in the capitol could hear us. We also chanted, "We are knocking on the door, and we won't leave until we get what we came here for."
I ran into many, many friends at this rally - people came from all over the state, lots and lots of different churches endorse this movement. I met Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Unitarians, Congregationalists, and of course my fellow Disciples.
Last year there weren't any counter-demonstrators, but this year we had about 5 people holding signs and facing us. The signs didn't make much sense, because about half the messages were quotes from the bible and so on, and we believe these things already. For example, one sign said, "Wages of sin is death - God's gift is eternal life"(That's Romans 6:23, and the whole chapter is about mourning the "old you" after making a radical lifestyle change. This part means if you do not nurture your spirit, your soul will die, even though your body is still alive. ) Another had a sign that said: "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just and unjust, so that he might bring us to God. "(That's 1 Peter 3:18 - GO JESUS!!)