FOCUS ON YOUR COMMUNITY
Making connections in your community can be as simple as talking to your friends and neighbors about your ceremony and discussing with them how they might want to help. Start by talking to friends, family and businesses you are associated with, organizations or churches you're involved with, etc. You and people who you see everyday have groups and organizations with which one works with, participates in or is affiliated with. Your friends, families and colleagues can be excellent sources to providing easy access to community organizations. Essential 
battles in the fight for the freedom to marry continue in the court of public opinion, as well as the state courts. Engaging and educating non-gay allies about the importance of the freedom to marry - with all of the rights, responsibilities, and protections that it confers - is critical. Here are the key steps and tools you can use to help end this chapter of discrimination - how you can GET INVOLVED in the fight for the freedom to marry!
How to Reach Out to Your Community:
1. Identify close friends or family who might become part of a small team to
organize your community outreach. You may also choose to just do this as a
couple.
2. As a team, brainstorm about 20 local clergy, community leaders, or organizations that people are part of, which you could approach to educate about marriage and get to endorse The Marriage Resolution. Set a goal of getting these first 20 to sign the resolution in two months.
3. At the end of two months, see where you are most successful, re-approach
as need be and brainstorm 20 new potential signatories, etc.
4. Re-Approach signatories with invitations to participate in the April 28th
or 29th ceremony. And also ask for their help and support in getting other
signatories. Make requests specific: could you as a Methodist minister
approach 5 other Methodist ministers to ask them to endorse the resolution,
and invite them to be present at the event...
FYI:
· The key is using the Resolution to engage potential (especially non-gay) allies about the freedom to marry. This is an opportunity to tell people about the life experiences of same-sex couples and their families, and why they need access to the protections of civil marriage.
· People you approach may not agree to sign on at first, but will have at least learned something. Approach them again after they've had some time to think about it, and they'll be much more likely to sign on! Many more people and organizations will be willing to offer their support than you may initially think - they're just waiting for you to ask!
Here is the
The Marriage Resolution.
This is what you will be asking community leaders, businesses and organizations to sign
and endorse.
For More Detail on Action Steps Visit Lambda's Get Engaged! Action Steps.
TALKING POINTS:
Responses To Possible Concerns and Comments
"Tradition" is not a reason to deny marriage to same-sex couples. Marriage
was "traditionally" defined as a union of two people of the same religion or
the same race, or one in which wives were the property of their husbands.
Those "traditional" elements of marriage changed to reflect this nation's
core principles of equality for individuals. Marriage should be defined to
include the committed relationships of same-sex couples as well.
Raising children is one of many reasons for marriage, and same-sex couples
do raise children.
Marriage is not only about procreation -- many people marry who cannot or
choose not to have children. Marriage is about love between two adults who
want to live in a committed relationship, with or without children. The
state extends the same marital protections to couples who are infertile or
couples who are past childbearing age that it extends to couples intending
to have multiple children. It is also a fact that more and more lesbian and
gay couples are raising children together. Marriage would create automatic
protections for these children. These are protections that now may have to
be created through adoption or elaborate legal documents.
Civil marriage and religious marriage are two different things.
Couples who wish legal recognition for their marriage must first get a
license issued by the government and then have an authorized person marry
them. Depending on the state, the person who marries the couple may be a
government official (such as a justice of the peace or city hall official)
or an otherwise authorized individual (such as some clergy). Thus, all
couples need to be licensed by the government in order to marry, but couples
then decide whether to be married by a clergy person in a religious
marriage, or by an official in a civil marriage.
· Religious groups retain the right to marry or not to marry couples, as they wish, according to their religious principles.
· Though many faiths do perform marriages for same-sex couples, at present these marriages have no legal recognition because they have not been licensed by the government.
· Religions should not dictate who gets a marriage license from the state, just as the state should not dictate which marriage any religion performs or recognizes.
Here are some more detailed Talking Points.
Also see Marriage Equality's Why Marriage Matters.
Here's a State by State Guide to let you know what’s going on in your area.
posted by simon cantlon at 10:10 AM
Friday, June 08, 2001
