Bay Windows - April 22, 2004
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.

Weeks later, on April 15, a group of about 40 people gathered in the meeting room of the Community Church of Boston to plan a very different kind of protest, scheduled for May 17, the day the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect.

As in the Statehouse rainbow flags were evident in the meeting room, including one draped on the podium, but American flags were conspicuously absent. Hanging along the walls were posters covered in slogans such as "Support Equal Marriage Rights for All," "Come Out Against War and Racism," and "Money for AIDS, not the Pentagon."

The organizers of the meeting are part of a movement to use May 17 as a platform to raise awareness not just about same-sex marriage, but about other progressive issues including health care, racism, AIDS funding, police brutality, and the conflict in Iraq as well. The movement, called the May 17 Solidarity Coalition for Equal Marriage Rights and Against All Forms of Discrimination, Bigotry and Racism, hopes to stage a protest in Boston as well as solidarity protests in a number of other cities around the country.

Addressing the crowd at the Community Church, activist Imani Henry said that support for the nationwide May 17 protest has grown rapidly. The coalition has circulated a petition outlining its commitment to a variety of progressive causes, including support for legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, and Henry said the response has been incredibly positive.

"This coalition that has been called to support and defend LGBT people's rights for same-sex marriage, but also to show solidarity against all people who are facing discrimination and oppression in this period of time, is a very important and revolutionary act of solidarity," said Henry. "Already there's been over 400 endorsers nationally, and in fact internationally, for this call to action."

Locally, state Sens. Jarrett Barrios and Dianne Wilkerson and City Councilors Chuck Turner and Felix Arroyo have signed on to the coalition's petition. Turner and Arroyo both addressed the April 15 meeting. Nationally, the coalition has won support from an assortment of activist groups, college students, concerned individuals, and even the odd celebrity, such as comedian Margaret Cho.

Henry said that plans are already underway for May 17 events in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. He said that activists in Baltimore, New York, Florida, and Philadelphia are also planning to participate, either by holding protests in their own cities or by traveling to Boston for May 17.

The Boston protest is currently in the planning stages, but organizers expect that there will be a rally at City Hall followed by a march to the Statehouse and another rally. Organizers hope to target a number of state and city officials through their protest, including Gov. Mitt Romney, House Speaker Thomas Finneran, and members of the Boston City Council for their positions on issues ranging from marriage to school busing to affirmative action.

"This is a multi-headed enemy that we're fighting, and we have to keep fighting on all the fronts, and if we don't do that, we aren't serious," Turner told the audience at the Community Church. He criticized many of Boston's black clergy for narrowing their focus and arguing that same-sex marriage was not a civil rights struggle. "Of course it's a civil rights issue. And the only reason why you wouldn't see it as a civil rights issue is that you have focused only on a narrow part of the struggle for freedom and the liberation of human beings in this country."

Gary Daffin, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus and executive director of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition, attended the meeting as a representative of MassEquality, the coalition of groups that attempted to defeat the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He said that building the progressive coalition envisioned by the organizers for May 17 would require a lot of work, particularly in communities of color, to garner widespread support for same-sex marriage.

"We have a long way to go before communities of color and a lot of other communities are really looking at, what I would say [is] homophobia to a certain extent, but really looking at why it is that gay people from those communities don't feel like they can claim that right [to marry], and why it is that people aren't broadly supportive of gay marriage," said Daffin. "I think maybe it's a little bit too easy to just say, 'it's part of this broader progressive movement,' because I think there's a lot of work that we need to do really close to home, because there's not a consensus within the progressive movement or communities of color. There's not consensus on marriage yet."

Daffin said one way to help build that consensus would be to use the solidarity protests to point out that May 17 is the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that struck down segregated schools. He said protestors could emphasize that both school segregation and same-sex marriage bans defined certain people as second class citizens.

Other speakers said they hoped the solidarity action would prompt the same-sex marriage movement to be more inclusive. Ebony Allen Barkley, an activist with the GLBT labor group Pride at Work, hoped that the groups working for same-sex marriage would include greater numbers of people of color and working class people in their leadership. Steph Simard of the Mass. Transgender Political Coalition said her group hoped that people fighting for same-sex marriage would consider the potential backlash caused by a win in May, particularly as it affects transgender people.

Gerry Scoppettuolo, a member of the GLBT activist group Stonewall Warriors, told Bay Windows that he hoped the May 17 protest in Boston would draw connections between the issue of same-sex marriage and other issues, particularly the issue of segregated schools. Citing efforts by city councilors to end school busing and restore neighborhood schools in Boston, he said many of the supporters of neighborhood schools are also opponents of same-sex marriage.

"I think that our elected officials consciously segregated the Boston school system. Our elected officials are consciously taking away our marriage rights. These same elected officials are turning back the clock on Boston school desegregation," said Scoppettuolo.

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