Every February 14th for the past six years, I have accompanied my two moms to our local county clerk’s office for National Marriage Equality Day. Every year, we have been the only LGBT family in our county to go to the county clerk’s office and ask for a license. My moms and I would go in with $80 in cash, their birth certificates, and their passports. Accompanied by the media, we would ask for a license and, when denied, explain why it was important for our family to have the right to marry.
Though it was painful to be reminded constantly that we were second-class citizens, it was always important for us to do this. By asking for a license every year, we were reminding people that there were couples and families who were members of their own community who were living without basic civil rights. We were giving a face to a family, one of many in our county and one of millions in our country, affected by the lack of equality. Without people seeing the faces and hearing the stories of families and children in this country affected by inequality, they do not understand how vital this issue is. They simply do not get it, nor do they feel that it is an issue that affects or touches them.
Last year, I decided that there had to be a better way to gain support from our county and state leadership. I was tired of going in and being denied a license, and I felt that we could do more to educate people and gain support from our leaders and our community members. After five years, I felt that our county clerk’s office and our county leadership felt empathy for us, and they also felt helpless and powerless in being able to support us. After they had become familiar with our family, and knew that we deserved equal rights, I thought that going in to ask for a license was humiliating for our county leadership and for us as well. I wanted to find a way to help them support my family and the many other LGBT families in our county.
I decided to ask my county clerk, Warren Slocum, to stand with my family and publicly say that he believed in equality for all people and all families. After having met face to face with our county clerk the previous year, I believe that hearing from a youth who was hurt terribly by the lack of equality affected him deeply. After it was publicized that County Clerk Warren Slocum would stand with my family and me, I received a call from our local Assembly member, Leland Yee. Mr. Lee said that he was touched by my family’s struggle, and he believed in what I was doing and wanted to stand with us, too, in support of equality for all people. Soon, another Assembly member, Ira Ruskin, agreed to stand with us, and several members of our board of supervisors as well.
What started out as simply a belief that I could get my local leadership to stand with my family in support of equality for all people soon became a reality. No longer were we the only LGBT family, nor were we alone. We had started a movement. I contacted PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), COLAGE (Children of Lesbians & Gays Everywhere), EQCA (Equality California), and Freedom to Marry, and soon other LGBT families felt safe and supported and came out to stand with us. More than fifty people showed up last year to stand in support of equality.
This year, I asked our county clerk to write a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. San Mateo County Clerk Warren Slocum responded by writing a letter, asking the governor to allow him to issue marriage licenses to all the couples in his county who want them. He also sent it to every county clerk in California. On February 14 I stood on the same steps where I had stood alone with my moms, only two years ago, but this year we were far from alone! Standing with my moms and me were County Clerk Warren Slocum, California Assembly member Mark Leno (author of Assembly Bill 43—The Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Protection Act), California State Senator Leland Yee, and well over one hundred people, couples, and families. Our local, county, and state leadership stood together with a community of people to publicly say that all people and all families were equal in their eyes, and they believed that they should be given the same exact rights!
I spoke, as did Assembly member Mark Leno, Senator Leland Yee, and County Clerk Warren Slocum. Also sharing their voices were parents of LGBT children, queer teens who voiced what it felt like to be the next generation who would be considered unequal people, and children of LGBT parents. More than one hundred people, including families and children, gathered together holding hands, holding signs, and feeling proud, excited, and embraced by their county. What an amazing feeling it was to know that in helping our county become a more inclusive and supportive place, we were also helping people to feel that they were being embraced and supported by their county leadership. It was a beautiful thing!
Our county clerk’s office even came up with the idea to make a historical book. Though they could not give us licenses, they did not want anyone to walk away empty handed. They wanted people to know that this day would not be forgotten but instead recorded forever in history. They had a beautiful book made for people to sign, and they even had a Polaroid camera to take pictures of families. They provided crayons, markers, and stickers for kids and families to decorate their own pages for the book. They intend this book to be put in San Mateo County’s historical museum as part of our county’s fight for civil rights. They also gave every person a copy of Warren Slocum’s letter to the governor rolled up with a bow on it.
How in two years’ time did we go from being the only LGBT family in our county to standing with our leaders and hundreds of others in full support of equality for all people? That answer is easy. I simply asked our leaders to stand with us. I met with my county clerk, and I explained to him how my family and I were affected by the lack of equality. I told him that I needed him to lead on behalf of my family too. Once he understood that he indeed had an obligation to lead on behalf of every member of his community, he was very empowered to do the right thing.
We must expect our leaders to lead on behalf of all people. When we expect them to lead on our behalf, they will. Every leader has an obligation and a responsibility to represent every member of their community. To do less is not only to misrepresent but to ignore those members of their community who are suffering from lack of equality. If we show our leaders how to support us, we are helping them understand that they have the duty, as well as the power, to help people who have long been overdue equality. We also then empower and inspire other LGBT people and families to stand up for their rights. If people see that this issue concerns their coworkers, friends, neighbors, co-parishioners, classmates, families, and children, it no longer seems foreign to them. They realize that the lack of equality affects everyone, and we must all care about it.
What San Mateo County did this year in supporting marriage equality is a model for all other communities to follow. In showing that a community can embrace and support all of its members, county leaders showed that they believe every member of their community is an equal person and worthy of the same exact rights. It wasn’t a risky, controversial, or divisive action to take. In fact, having our leaders and our community members stand up together in support of all people made our community a happier, more cohesive, inclusive, embracing, and supportive place. Perhaps I am only a teenager, and perhaps believing that political leadership and communities of people can stand together seems unrealistic and idealistic. Or perhaps, if you in fact expect equality, you may just get it. I believe that if we as communities stood up together expecting equality and nothing less, we could change the world overnight.
Marina Gatto
Eighteen-year-old nationally recognized LGBT rights activist
www.marinagatto.com
