San Francisco, California: “The election of Senator Barack Obama as President sweeps away the last racial barrier in American politics and provides us, including the LGBT community, so much hope for a better tomorrow. The passage of three constitutional amendments to restrict marriage to be between a man and a woman and another amendment in Arkansas to limit adoptions and foster care of children to only those who are legally married illustrates the discrimination that the LGBT community still faces in our country today. It is a bittersweet moment.”
LGBT Americans deserve the security and respect that marriage provides and we will continue to move forward in fighting for those freedoms and we will see progress and setbacks along the way. In Connecticut, same-sex couples will begin to marry on November 12th and those rights will be protected with the defeat of a constitutional convention on that issue. In New York, Senate leadership has changed and we hope and believe they will take up and pass marriage equality legislation that the New York Governor has said he will sign. We will win the freedom to marry, it will just take longer than is should.
After tens of thousands of same-sex couples got married in California, the majority of those who voted have decided to take that fundamental right away and introduce discrimination into our state Constitution. Californians voted for the better treatment of chickens but denied equal rights and protections for the gay neighbors – that's unfair and wrong. No one ever voted to take away the right of interracial couples to marry and if they did…it would have taken more than 40 years a majority of Americans to say OK. Less than six months after the California Supreme Court eliminated our ban on marriage for same-sex couples, it came to a vote of Californians – that‟s not the way our civil rights should be granted or taken away. These civil rights exist, and Marriage Equality USA will not stop until everyone in the LGBT community receives the same dignity and respect as any other American, until we have marriage.
We will win the freedom to marry – if not today, then tomorrow – and when anyone tells us we can‟t, we will tell them 'yes we can.'"
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Marriage Equality USA™ is a national organization whose mission is to secure legally recognized civil marriage equality for all, at the federal and state level, without regard to gender identity or sexual orientation.
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REPORTERS: You can subscribe to press releases here and get the latest Marriage Equality USA news as it occurs.
As a national organization, it is impossible for us to submit official press releases to every reporter. Remain informed and get exclusive stories by subscribing to our official press release feed in a browser, or have it emailed to you!
As a national organization, it is impossible for us to submit official press releases to every reporter. Remain informed and get exclusive stories by subscribing to our official press release feed in a browser, or have it emailed to you!
Marriage Equality, Inc. began as an idea in 1996 with a handful of activists believing that same-sex couples should have the freedom and the right to civil marriage, and angry that the federal government wanted to pass a law barring LGBT people from this right. The organization was officially founded and formed February 12, 1998, on National Freedom To Marry Day. The New York chapter became so successful that activists in Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco, began Marriage Equality California.
In the late autumn of 2000, the national organization, Marriage Equality USA was officially founded. Since then other chapters have formed across the country and are chapters are growing every day. The organization's sole purpose and focus is to end discrimination in civil marriage so that same-sex couples can enjoy the same legal and societal status as opposite-sex couples.