Happy 35th anniversary, Christine Marie Shay

Chris and I made solemn vows 35 years ago today in Ormond Beach, FL. First, we got married. Second, we vowed to never smush cake in each other's faces. Third, we vowed to toast our good health as often as possible. So far, so good. Happy 35th anniversary to my beautiful wife.

Lifting of same-sex marriage ban in Wyoming a big surprise

I don't know about you, but I am still stunned by October's news that same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in Wyoming. I never thought I would see that day. I'm a supporter and have been for many years. The same goes for my wife Chris. We've been married for 32 years. In February 2011, we attended a rally at the Capitol supporting marriage equality. Rev. Rodger McDaniel and his wife Pat were scheduled to burn a copy of their 34-year-old marriage license as were the rest of us married folks who turned out to support the cause. The authorities frowned on burning things on public property so McDaniel used a paper shredder instead. Not as picturesque but we got the point across. If our LGBT friends can't get married, our marriage licenses aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

Now they are.

Credit goes to Wyoming Equality for its efforts. Kudos to Jeran Artery for being the face of the movement in his home state. Jeran and his partner Mike will be married soon. Wishing much happiness to this loving couple.

As is often the case in our strange state, it wasn't just Democrats who stand up for marriage equality. Republicans and Libertarians are also in the mix. Sen. Cale Case and Rep. Sue Wallis spoke out publicly for the legislature's civil unions bill.

Wyoming has come a long way in a short amount of time. So has the country. So have I. I grew up in the South of the sixties. Gays and lesbians were safely in the closet. Those who attempted to live openly gay lives were tormented and beat up. It was nominally OK for gay guys to be hairdressers and florists. It was not OK for them to be teachers, coaches, doctors, carpenters or politicians. Queers. Homos. Faggots. You've heard all of the terms. Name-calling hurts. Getting punched in the face hurts too.

Why am I tolerant when others are not? I lived in cities where I had LGBT neighbors and friends. I worked in the arts where many LGBT people work. The arts has always called those with different sensibilities. I once interviewed a successful dancer for a story. He grew up in Casper. He was an athlete who wanted to be a dancer and not a football player. He had some wonderful teachers, but also had to endure a lot of abuse from classmates. He ended up attending an arts high school in Massachusetts, college in New York City and now is a principal at a Canadian dance company. Why was this Wyomingite called to be a dancer and not a cowboy? There's some mystery in that, but thank goodness he found out what his calling was and had a chance to pursue his dreams.

BTW, there are gay cowboys in Wyoming, and not just in Annie Proulx's short stories.

I like who I have become. An aging tolerant white guy. This puts me at odds with some of my demographic cohort, but it has always been thus. Baby Boomers are a cantankerous lot. All of the battles we fight now, we also fought back in the sixties and seventies. I was a peacenik who was supposed to be a warrior. I was tolerant when I was supposed to be a bigot. I am a feminist who was supposed to be a know-it-all patriarch. I'm a liberal from a conservative family, A writer who was trained to be a priest or a corporate board president or one of those blowhards you see on FOX.

By taking a different path, I took a different path.

And that has made all of the difference.

Sen. Al Simpson: Freedom to Marry is the Wyoming way

Right on, Big Al!

UW College of Law hosts marriage equality panel discussion March 31

From Jeran Artery, Wyoming Unites for Marriage and chairman of Wyoming Equality:

On Monday, the Advocates & Allies club at the University of Wyoming School of Law is hosting “Marriage Equality Local – Regional – Global” which is sure to be a great conversation about marriage in Wyoming, around the country and around the world. 

What: Panel Conversation – Marriage Equality Local – Regional – Global
When: Monday, March 31 at 7 p.m.
Where: University of Wyoming College of Law – Room: Law 186
Who: You! And a great panel featuring Sara Eisenberg, Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco; Jaime Huling, Attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights; and me, Jeran Artery, Chairman of Wyoming Equality

Join us for what promises to be a great conversation about marriage. Bring your ideas and your questions about the effort to move marriage forward here in Wyoming and about the broader movement to ensure that all loving, committed couples everywhere have the freedom to marry.

Click here to RSVP and let us know you’ll be there!

We’re committed to moving marriage forward in Wyoming by sharing stories of why marriage matters to all families. Together, we can stand up and make our voice heard to ensure that someday soon Wyoming lives up to its motto as the Equality State!

Hope to see you there!

Wyoming Unites for Marriage launches campaign

The tall guy in the middle is yours truly. I'm flanked by Robin Van Ausdall, director of the Wyoming Democratic Party, and Rodger McDaniel, fellow prog-blogger and pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church. We joined 100 or so others at the Wyoming State Capitol on Monday for the launch of the Wyoming Unites for Marriage campaign. Four Wyoming LGBT couples, joined by Wyoming Equality, filed a lawsuit earlier this month in an effort to help the state live up to its "Equality State" motto. Sign the Wyoming Unites pledge here.

Let's help "The Equality State" live up to its name

Wyoming Equality issued a press release as soon as the Supreme Court rulings hit the news today. While Wyoming, "The Equality State," the big square state with the most lopsided legislature in the USA, may be one of the last to legislate in favor of marriage equality, there are all sorts of possible strategies to move the process along. WE Chairman Jeran Artery did a good job of outlining some of those in today's press release. I particularly liked his summation:

Today’s victory adds momentum to the work to win marriage equality in Wyoming, which will continue through legislative action and litigation, where necessary. We will continue to work with national organizations such as Freedom to Marry, HRC, National Center for Lesbian Rights, PFLAG, Gill Action and others until Wyoming lives up to her name as “The Equality State.”

Repeat after me: "The Equality State." Let's make that moniker a reality.

Rep. Childers: Wyoming promotes modern-day version of South's anti-miscegenation laws

The Casper Star-Tribune provided this tally of Wyoming House votes on HB74: Bill to promote discrimination against LGBT citizens (that's my translation of this legislation):

Here's how members of the Wyoming House voted Monday on House Bill 74, which would stop recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions performed outside Wyoming.

In favor (32): Blikre, Bretchtel, Botten, Buchanan, Burkhart, Campbell, Cannady, Davison, Edmonds, Eklund, Gay, Greear, Harshman, Harvey, Hunt, Jaggi, Kasperik, Kroeker, Krone, Lockhart, Loucks, Lubnau, Madden, McKim, Miller, Peasley, Petersen, Quarberg, Semlek, Shepperson, Stubson, Teeters.

Against (28): Barbuto, Berger, Blake, Bonner, Brown, Byrd, Childers, Connolly, Craft, Esquibel, Freeman, Gingery, Greene, Illoway, McOmie, Moniz, Nicholas, Patton, Pedersen, Petroff, Roscoe, Steward, Throne, Vranish, Wallis, Zwonitzer (Dan), Zwonitzer (Dave).

Excused: Goggles.

I am glad to see that my Rep., Mr. Nicholas, voted against this ridiculous bill. He's brand new and I didn't vote for him in 2010 but I may next time.

Many of the yay votes come from the expected sources, especially Amy Edmonds of Cheyenne. Very disappointed with the anti-gay vote by usually moderate Rep. Tim Stubson of Casper. What was he thinking?

Here's another telling snippet from the CST article:

State Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, who has been one of the leading opponents of anti-gay marriage bills in the House, compared HB74 to Jim Crow laws in place when he was growing up in Texas in the 1950s. 

"What we're doing with this law is basically the same situation that the state that I grew up in and many other Southern states did -- they denied the right of a black person to marry a white person," Childers said. "Now what we're doing here is with gays."

In the heat of argument, Rep. Childers talked about Jim Crow laws when he meant anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited marriage between whites and blacks. Or maybe it's a reporter error. You can look it up.

Guest blogger: HB 74 is not legislation that reflects our history as The Equality State

Don't have too many guest blogs on these pages. But this is a great one from Emily Cram (pictured at right), a doctoral student at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. Way back when, Emily worked as an intern for me at the Wyoming Arts Council. A writer and champion forensics student at University of Wyoming, Emily has gone on to bigger things.

However, she is a daughter of Wyoming -- a native. As such, she is free to weigh in on anything she damn well wants to. So say I. Emily gives permission for anyone and everyone to borrow her fine words and send them to his/her legislator. She hopes for wide distribution.

Emily speaks:

Just recently, past and present Wyoming governors gathered to discuss how to govern Wyoming’s future, while taking care to be sure that governance was in the spirit of Wyoming’s political attitudes and culture. As I watched Governors Mead, Freudenthal, Geringer, and Sullivan, I was moved by the sense that Wyoming is a place where our disagreements never foreclose the way that we feel a deep sense of obligation towards each other in times of need. I believe Governor Geringer was the one who said: at one moment you may fight with another on the capital floor, but the next day that person just may be the one pulling you out of a snowdrift. 

The movement of HB 74, or the “Validity of Marriages” Bill out of the House Education Committee to the full consideration of the House and Senate is more than a snowdrift. It is a bill that cuts against the core values of Wyoming’s political culture: the belief that the government should not impinge on the ways in which a person desires to conduct their personal life and the families they wish to consensually create and ethically sustain. HB 74 invalidates the legal marriages of those who have committed no legal offense. Rather than commit to building and supporting Wyoming’s families, diverse in organization as they may be, HB 74 destroys the kinds of support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples ought to be able to access, just as any other human being who desires to faithfully participate in the institution of marriage. Acts that authorize only particular partnerships (i.e. the “males” and “females” that HB 74 validates), yet withhold the access to legal rights such as hospital visitation, fair housing, among others, marginalize people in Wyoming. 

HB 74 is not legislation that reflects our history as the Equality State. As the daughter of parents from Casper and Riverton, I am proud to have grown up in a place like Wyoming and still call it home. But HB 74 harms families and perpetuates the problematic belief that only certain kinds of families are valuable. I encourage the people of Wyoming to embrace our ability to disagree with each other yet always feel the need to pull others out of a snowdrift. Please support Wyoming’s families and vote against HB 74.

Sincerely,

Emily Dianne Cram

Welcome to the Equality State (and don't forget to read the fine print)

Credit goes to Meg Lanker of Laramie for this newly-revised banner for the non-equality state heretofore known as the Equality State. Don't forget to read the fine print! And don't forget to read the text of House Bill No. HB0074: Validity of Marriages. You can post a comment or a note at Meg's Facebook page. Go to http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=482738442965&id=686730787. You can also make comments here. Better yet, write your Rep or Sen and tell them there are better ways to spend their time and the taxpayers' money. Find contact info at the Legisweb site.

Can you say Equality State?

By Jeremy Pelzer at the Casper Star-Tribune:

Wyoming and nine other states signed onto a legal brief Friday claiming a federal court "exceeded its judicial authority" when it ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires legal marriage to include same-sex couples.

In the amicus brief, which was set to be filed late Friday afternoon with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, the states criticized a California federal judge's ruling last month that California's Proposition 8, a voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage, was illegal on federal constitutional grounds.

In the ruling, Judge Vaughn Walker wrote that there was no legitimate state interest in preventing same-sex marriages and that "moral disapproval" alone wasn't sufficient reason to justify banning it.

The case, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, is currently on appeal. Lawyers for both sides have said they expect the case to ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The other states joining the brief are Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

Among other points, the 39-page brief asserts that same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right; questions the legal grounds of the decision; and holds that individual states, not the federal court system, have final say in decisions about whether to allow same-sex marriages.

The brief also states that Walker's definition of marriage as the state's approval of a couple's choice to live with, commit to and form a household and economic partnership with each other is a "staggeringly broad" definition that could open the door to polyamorous or even non-sexual marriages.

Dogs and cats living together! Married people not having sex! Polyamority!

Why is this the business of the State of Wyoming?