Ivy and Misha live in Piedmont, S.C. and are engaged to be married. The strength they exhibited as they applied for a marriage license says it all: love will free us and love will win.
[youtube]JbXRZor7nRE[/youtube]
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What follows is Ivy and Misha is their own words:
Our story is one filled with passion and purpose, passion for each other, and passion for
equality. We have been together for almost 2 years now, and Misha is the love of my life. We recently
got engaged, and we plan to get married. We would both love to hear those words ‘by the power
invested in me, by the state of South Carolina…’ We love the south, this is our home and we want to
stay here. Our friends, our family and our businesses are here. We don’t want to have to move to have
our marriage be legally recognized. It was our shared passion for equality that brought us together in
the first place. So, when we heard that the WE DO Campaign was coming to Greenville we had to get
involved! That may be the second best decision I’ve ever made. Saying yes to speak on the panel where I
met Misha being the first.
After our involvement with stage 2 of the WE DO Campaign there were so many positive things
that happened to us in our personal lives. It really opened up dialog with our families that would have
happened otherwise. After getting to know the amazing folks at CSE and getting more involved with the
work that they do, the only choice was to continue to stand up and resist these unjust laws by applying
for a marriage license again on January 11, 2013.
We stand up not only for ourselves, but also for those who can’t. For the teachers who could
lose their jobs for participating in this action with us due to discrimination. For the people who don’t
have the strength to come out yet. For the people who have lost their lives to the same beliefs that
these laws are founded in. The belief that LGBTQQI people are less than human, that we are second
class citizens, and that we are somehow less than equal. We know that this is just not true. We know
that there is nothing wrong with us. And we know that all LGBTQQI people deserve full equality under
federal law. This is why we must stand up and resist these unjust laws, and we won’t stop until we
realize that equality.
We live a pretty average life. We both work for our parents at small family owned businesses.
We live in a small town just outside of Greenville, South Carolina. We do laundry, wash dishes, and walk
our dogs. The notion that being able to legally commit ourselves to each other would somehow harm
society is simply a fallacy. This is why we believe in the importance of these conversations, and that
everyone’s hearts can be transformed around these issues once they realize just how human we are. We
want nothing more than the same legal rights, benefits, and protections that our heterosexual friends
get to enjoy; all 1,138 of them.
