LisaRose: A member of the Support Team who accompanied couples on multiple days during the WE DO Campaign.
Three days. Three couples. New friends. Old friends. Friends who have become like family. I like to think of myself as a fairly “aware” person, but the day-to-day reality that my LGBT friends live with became real to me in a whole new way this past week when I stood in silent supportive witness as three couples requested marriage licenses from the Register of Deeds for Buncombe County.
They were treated with respect and dignity. But no amount of courtesy could overcome the pain, the heartache, the gut-slamming reality of being told “no, you can’t get married” simply because the gender on both pieces of identification is the same. And on the day we heard that even their application for a license would be eradicated from the system, my knees gave way a bit as their humanity was discounted and their relationship reduced to something that could be deleted with the push of a button.
My husband – my second husband – and I have been married for almost 6 years. Yes, I’ve been allowed to get married twice. And according to the United States Government Accountability Office, he and I have more than 1,100 rights and responsibilities that same-sex couples are not able to access. One couple, two of our dearest friends, who have been together for 35 years and seen each other through the death of parents, several bouts of cancer, and all the banes and blessings that 35 years of shared living can bring still can’t access basic courtesies my husband and I received when we weren’t even married. We had talked about getting married, and knew we were going to do it. But the ring wasn’t purchased, a date had not been set. We were still living in separate states. During a week we were vacationing together, my grandmother passed away. So I called the airline and requested a “bereavement discount” for both me and my “fiancée.” It was given for the two of us with no questions asked.
I am sadly confident it would not have been so easy had I been requesting that discount for “me and my partner” or if the name I had given for the 2nd ticket had not been so traditionally masculine. So each day I can during this campaign, I am saying “We Do.” Yes, it’s hard to hear voices quaver as they ask for a license, knowing they’ll be denied. Yes, it’s painful to wrap your arms around a college student who’s just realized that could be her standing there in a few years if things don’t change. Yes, at night I go home and cry as I describe the events of that day’s action to my spouse. And yes, when they write “Rejected” on the marriage application of my friends, I want to reach across the counter and stop their hands. I want to plead and argue. My heart hurts. I want to change things.
So I say, “We Do” for my spouse (who is unable to attend) and myself. We do believe it is long past time for full equality under the law for LGBT people. We do believe it is important to resist an unjust state law that bans marriage equality. We do believe that the right to love and create a family is a basic human right. We do want LGBT people everywhere, those we know and love, and those we have not met, to know that we are standing in supportive witness of your right to love, your right to marry, your right to pursue happiness. We do believe that our liberation, our equality is bound up with yours, and we must work together, stand together, resist together, for the equality that will heal our land.
– LisaRose Barnes
