During the past month, the Campaign for Southern Equality has been traveling all over the South (and eating a lot of good food!) preparing for Stage 4 of the WE DO Campaign. We’ve been to Tuscaloosa and Mobile, Alabama; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; White Pine, Tennessee; Decatur, Georgia and just this week Wilson and Winston-Salem, N.C. We’ve met a lot of great folks who are willing to stand-up for marriage equality and reconnected with old friends who have joined this movement during the past year.
On December 1st, more than 60 people from across North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee gathered at the UCC Church in Asheville, N.C. for a day of trainings and workshops as we prepare to travel across seven Southern states – Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia – and Washington, D.C. for Stage 4 of the WE DO campaign during January of 2013.
The WE DO Campaign involves LGBT couples in the Southern communities where they live requesting – and being denied – marriage licenses in order to call for full equality under federal law and to resist unjust state laws.
Between January 2nd and 14th, 2013 LGBT couples will request and be denied marriage licenses in their hometowns across the South. On January 17, the final day of Stage 4, couples will be denied licenses in Arlington and we will begin a 4.5 mile march into Washington, DC. We will end at the Jefferson Memorial (subject to change) in an action that includes a legal marriage ceremony of one couple from North Carolina, Mark and Tim. The final day of action is an expression of resistance to current laws and celebration of our community.
The actions on January 17, 2013 are intended to highlight the lives and stories of LGBT people from across the South; the powerful reality that in our nation’s capital LGBT people have the right to marry; and the injustice that legal marriages between same-sex couples are not recognized in the South.
The full schedule for Stage 4 is:
January 2 – Hattiesburg, Mississippi
January 4 – Mobile, Alabama
January 7 – Decatur, Georgia
January 9 – Morristown, Tennessee
January 11 – Greenville, South Carolina and Asheville, North Carolina
January 14 – Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Wilson, North Carolina
January 17 – Arlington, Virginia and Washington D.C.
The WE DO Campaign will continue to grow across the South until LGBT people achieve full equality under federal law. If you are interested in participating please fill out a volunteer survey.
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