Gov. Sarah Palin wants a federal ban on same-sex marriage, but gay and lesbian Alaskans support the right to get married.
An unknown number of gay and lesbian couples from Alaska have been legally married in California since the state Supreme Court struck down their ban on same-sex marriage. Although not valid in Alaska, the marriages are recognized by several states and countries.
Will the right to marry be taken away by California's Proposition 8?
When the California Court granted gay and lesbian couples the right to marry on May 5, LGBT Alaskans celebrated the news.
"LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT," Shelly commented, and Koukla wrote, "Finally! I would love to be in San Francisco tonight."
Alaskans Together for Equality and the ACLU of Alaska gave official statements supporting the decision, PFLAG Anchorage and Identity, Inc. added their statements, and many LGBT Alaskans sent their personal reactions on the impact of this historic event.
"It is a great day for humanity that this important state Supreme Court acknowledged that gay and lesbian Americans are due the same rights under the constitution as other Americans," said Tim Stallard of Fairbanks, writing for Alaskans Together.
We knew the decision would be challenged, and Alaskans began donating money to support marriage equality.
"This good news definitely impacts us personally as Alaskans," said Marsha Buck of PFLAG Juneau. "Way to go California! I'm sending off several personal checks to make certain this decision is not overturned in November."
"I intend to give more money to our side in that campaign than to any in my life," said Sara Boesser, author of Silent Lives: How High a Price?
A few weeks after the decision, the Juneau Pride Chorus collected donations for Equality For All during "Songs for the Soul," their 10th Anniversary Spring Concert.
Alaskans also held two Equality For All: NO on 8 fundraisers and set up a state donation page for the NO on 8 campaign.
The Anchorage LGBT community Celebrated the Summer of Love with rumba dance lessons and a gay and lesbian newlywed game at Mad Myrna's.
Juneau residents Jumped the Broom in Solidarity and Celebration of Love and Marriage at a wedding party hosted by a lesbian couple who were married (again) in California, eighteen years after their original non-legal wedding.
Many individual Alaskans donated to NO on 8, and Elias Rojas registered an Alaska Fundraising page to track our contributions.
"Why should Alaskans care what happens in California?" Elias wrote in his letter to Alaska's LGBT community. "Simply put, [Prop 8] will not only eliminate the right to marry by same-sex couples in California . . . but it will also be an extreme step backwards for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community's efforts to achieve civil equality in Alaska and across the country."
Prop. 8 is unfair, unnecessary and wrong. Special interest groups behind Prop 8 have engaged in a deceptive campaign to confuse voters. Nearly every major newspaper in California, and a broad range of groups and leaders representing teachers, nurses, seniors, business and labor, oppose Proposition 8.
The polls are close. We can save this basic human right, for California and for all of us.
Support marriage equality - Ask your friends and relatives in California to vote NO on 8 on Tuesday, and donate to NO on 8 today: Alaska Fundraising page for NO on 8.
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This post is in honor of Write to Marry Day. Please join bloggers around the country and around the world on Wednesday, October 29 to blog in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against California's Proposition 8.
Check out the many wonderful Write to Marry posts listed on Mombian.
1 comment:
Gene and I want to share these thoughts with you today. It was prompted by a blogger friend who posted the Langston Hughes poem below. Blessings to us all.
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It's odd. In London, I've shared the elation with Africans now residents, who like me, are so happy about Obama's victory. Our victory. So happy about a re-made America bursting from its past.
But then I read of the civil rights loses that very same day in three states in that country: Arizona, Florida and California. These are results that many can pass over as so much minor news on a big news day.
It was the day that Americans voted to bar gay and lesbian couples from equal treatment in the law in their constitutions. As the American constitution once enshrined a color bar, thirty American states, including Alaska, today bar gay and lesbian marriage. These are thirty American, Obama-as-president states that say my relationship is not, and will not be, equal to heterosexual marriage.
It is a bittersweet day for me, for my partner of thirty years. It is a tragic day for black, latino, native american, asian gay and lesbian couples denied welcome as families. You may not feel the sting, the irony, the pure confusion we feel with this rush of simultaneous joy and loss. You may not know how we can be proud and hurt this very same day in American history.
As America sits down at its Thanksgiving table with its black son, it turns away its lesbian and gay families.
The joy is great for us, yet we are not at the table. We cry bittersweet tears.
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Langston Hughes.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
'Eat in the kitchen,' Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed
-- I, too, am America.
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