Tomorrow is a BIG day for Marriage Equality in Mississippi

Mississippi is latest battleground in fight for same-sex marriage

Lawsuit seeks to strike down state’s ban on gay marriage

UPDATED 7:57 AM CST Nov 11, 2014

JACKSON, Miss. —Mississippi is the latest battle line in the fight for gay marriage.

A lawsuit is seeking to strike down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, which could allow gay couples to wed as soon as this week.

Carla Webb and Joce Pritchett are among those who filed the lawsuit. They met and fell in love 11 years ago in Jackson. Last year, Carla surprised Joce with a September wedding in Maine.

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“Sept. 7, right? I’m terrible with dates. She has to remind me,” Pritchett said.

“I do,” Webb said.

Pritchett and Webb have a 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. In Mississippi, their marriage in Maine is not recognized. They said that’s a threat to their family.

“When there’s nothing in writing, or that legally protects your kids from other people, it’s a frightening way to live,” Pritchett said.

The couple said fertility doctors in Mississippi refused to treat them, so an out-of-state fertility specialist transferred Webb’s eggs to Pritchett, who gave birth to the children.

“We didn’t understand at the time that when I carried them, that makes them legally mine, according to the state of Mississippi,” Pritchett said. “So they’re Carla’s biological children, but she has no legal rights to them at all.”

The couple wants the option for Webb to legally adopt her children.

A federal judge will hold a hearing Wednesday that could be historic for gay rights in Mississippi.

“The best case scenario is that he agrees with us that the laws should be struck down and that he allows his decision to take effect immediately,” said Rob McDuff, attorney for the plaintiffs.

Attorneys said a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would force the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state. It would also make it legal for gay couples to marry.

16 WAPT’s Keegan Foxx interviews Carla Webb and Joce Pritchett.

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Gay rights advocate Eddie Outlaw is hosting a reception Wednesday night, after the hearing. He said he’ll have officiants on-hand ready to perform a marriage ceremony, just in case.

“There will be people on-hand, ready, and if our county clerks are prepared to issue marriage licenses that day (gay) people will marry in Mississippi,” Outlaw said.

Both Gov. Phil Bryant and Attorney General Jim Hood are defendants in the lawsuit.

“The governor took an oath of office to defend the Constitution of the state of Mississippi and that’s what he intends to do,” said Knox Graham, a spokesman for the governor.

Jan Schaeffer, Hood’s spokeswoman, said the attorney general’s “court filings will speak for us.”

Several outcomes are possible Wednesday. But no matter what happens, marriage equality could be forced on Mississippi because the state is part of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, along with Texas and Louisiana, and both states have pending appeals regarding same-sex marriages. Those cases will be heard the week of Jan. 5.

“Once there is a decision in the Fifth Circuit, in either the Louisiana case or the Texas case, or our case if it makes it there by that time, that decision will govern all three states,” McDuff said.

Webb and Pritchett said it’s a bit scary being the first to take this legal step in Mississippi, but it’s for the sake of their family.

“This is our family and we’re a loving family, and I think we’re loving people,” Webb said. “We just want to take care of our family. We don’t want to make other people do things they don’t want to do.”

Instapoll 16: Should same-sex marriage be legal in Mississippi? Cast your vote by calling or texting 601-980-4416 and entering “1” for yes or “2” for no.

I’m a Gay Man Who Married a Straight Woman

When religion makes a promise reality can’t keep.

—

“My eyes opened around 2:00 A.M. to the sound of a crowd screaming in the background. I had fallen asleep on the sofa and was, once again, being awakened by a late-night airing of The Jerry Springer Show. No sooner did I regain consciousness than depression wrapped itself around my psyche like a tight-fitting shoe. I let out a barely audible sigh. Sleep often eluded me; insomnia was now as much a part of my routine as brushing my teeth. I slept when I could.

“I hated the Jerry Springer show, but changing the channel required too much effort. “What are you going to tell our son?!” the distraught guest screamed at her husband, a transgendered cowboy who was on the show to come out to his wife and introduce his Harley-riding boyfriend. “Our son’s only ten,” she said, her voice growing quieter and more desperate. How could someone do that to his kid? I thought. And why on national TV? As I watched her bury her head in her hands, shaking with sobs, a tear formed in the corner of my own eye and slowly drifted over the bridge of my nose. With my own divorce imminent, my emotions were raw.

“It had only been a couple of months since my wife told me our marriage was over. We had been married for six and a half years and, though our marriage was rocky from the start, I never expected to be in this situation. I made a commitment for life. In addition, the thought of not seeing my daughters every day, putting them to bed at night and waking them up in the morning, was more than I could bear. I was devastated.

“Another roar from the raucous Springer crowd brought my attention back to the television. The husband’s cocky attitude made me angry. I didn’t know if the story was real, but my heart ached for his little boy just the same. This man projected the self-centered callousness I saw in my wife. I hated him. I hated her. I mustered the strength to find the remote and press the power button. The screen went dark.”

Excerpt from: Going Gay My Journey from Evangelical Christian Minister to Self-acceptance, Love, Life, and Meaning (CK Publishing, 2014)

We were young, in love, and believed that, with God on our side, the whole world had been laid out before us.

Like most couples, my wife and I, full of hope and promise, walked down the aisle of the church where we married. We were both dedicated, Evangelical Christians. I was in the ministry at the time. We were young, in love, and believed that, with God on our side, the whole world had been laid out before us.

But I was gay.

People frequently ask if my wife knew I was gay when she married me. The answer is a bit more complicated than a simple yes or no. I had gone through an ex-gay ministry, the most famous one in the country in fact, and was working for them when we got married. My wife and I believed I had been “healed” of my homosexuality, or was at least in the process of being healed. Our faith taught us to trust, pray and believe that God could do miraculous things.

It wasn’t too long into the marriage before we both began to sense something was wrong. There was an invisible wall that separated us emotionally. I wanted to believe it wasn’t there and denied it vehemently when she brought it up. We prayed harder. I had sufficiently suppressed my sexuality in the years leading up to the marriage. I believed my lack of sexual attraction meant God was healing me. What it really meant was that I had learned to subdue it to the point that I felt almost no sexual attractions at all. This gave me a sense of satisfaction, feeling as though my spirituality was higher than my carnal self. At the same time, I only felt half-alive.

I controlled practically everything around me, from how I dressed to how my house looked, to what I wanted others to perceive about me. It was exhausting. I detracted from intimacy by causing an argument, making a joke, or claiming to be too tired. The latter was mostly true since I put so much energy into pretending. In those rare times we had sex, it was more like building a fence than building a relationship. I was proud of the fact that I got through it, all the while hoping she didn’t notice how uncomfortable I felt.

♦◊♦

The emotional strain grew worse and the friendship that once held us together began to come undone.

By the time we were pregnant with our first child, the relationship had nearly reached a breaking point. Divorce, however, wasn’t an option because of our Christian commitment. We prayed harder. We read our Bibles. We faithfully attended church, Bible studies and Christian fellowship. The emotional strain grew worse and the friendship that once held us together began to come undone.

Nearly as miraculous as the virgin birth itself, she was pregnant again. We knew exactly when it happened, in a moment – a brief moment – of truce. The pressures of life weighed on us as we both became disillusioned with church. The lack of answers and spiritual guidance for our troubles left us blaming each other. I hated her.

Soon, there was nothing attractive about her at all and I felt my marriage – the unspoken golden promise of ex-gay ministry – was an albatross that kept me from finding God. But I was trapped. With divorce out of the picture, I prayed God would take her home. I could make it as a single dad with two daughters, but I couldn’t bring myself to divorce her. That would be a sin.

Still, I wasn’t prepared when she took the initiative and divorced me. I reeled from the pain of failure, wondering how a just God could allow me to go through so much turmoil in one life. Wasn’t fighting the sinfulness of homosexuality enough? Now divorce? Where was the Christian promise of abundant life Jesus talked about? Why didn’t the magic formula of Bible reading, prayer, fasting, worship and fellowship work? I was an ordained minister, of all things. If anyone knew how it worked, it was me.

For six years following my divorce, I sat mostly in silence, isolating myself from the rest of the world. I frequently stared out of the large pane glass window in the back of my house, trying to figure out what happened. Faith and sexuality had been neatly compartmentalized to keep me from going insane. Now they were merging into one. Questioning my beliefs felt blasphemous. They were the very foundation on which I made decisions, lived, breathed and raised my children. I simply could not be wrong about them. The Bible could not be wrong.

♦◊♦

It’s been 12 years since my divorce. My ex-wife and I have jointly worked together and raised our children, even spending holidays and birthdays together. Our beliefs are drastically different than they used to be. It’s difficult to go through decades of inner turmoil and come out completely unscathed. Most of what I once believed about Christianity, I now see as nothing more than religious fervor, organized into murky factions of the same basic ideology. We call these denominations. There are 34,000 of them. Which one is “right” is anybody’s guess. I no longer care. I don’t think God does either.

I believe that God is bigger than the minute details that too frequently occupy our thoughts.

The Evangelical Christian Church’s idea that God can change people from gay to straight is misguided at best and malicious at worse. Men, women and children have been sold the promise that people can and should change their sexual orientation, based on interpretations of canonized texts. When it doesn’t work, the person wasn’t trying hard enough, didn’t have enough faith, was never a Christian in the first place, didn’t do it right, didn’t do it long enough, didn’t have the right counseling, and on and on goes the list. It all boils down to religion making a promise reality can’t keep.

I believe that God is bigger than the minute details that too frequently occupy our thoughts. When I let go, I discovered life was never meant to be an uphill battle. Rather than simply trying to survive I can focus on helping others. That seems more Christian to me, and lines up perfectly with reality.

#BornPerfect

– See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/im-gay-man-married-a-straight-women-try/#sthash.qAd1cMDW.0antuymM.dpuf

Op-ed: LGBT Kids In The Bible Belt Need Our Help Why the south needs more shelters for LGBT youth.

Op-ed: LGBT Kids In The Bible Belt Need Our Help

Why the south needs more shelters for LGBT youth.

BY Joanne Spataro for The Advocate

October 27 2013 11:00 PM ET

I first stepped into my local LGBT youth assistance agency, Time Out Youth, in the fall of 2012. At the time, the non-profit organization had seen a 419 percent increase in homeless LGBT young people in need of temporary shelter in Charlotte, N.C.  I was there to write a story about why this was happening.

I talked with one 23-year-old, partially deaf, transgender man who told me how a staff member found him sleeping in his car and helped him find a place to stay through their host home program. He had to temporarily stay at the Vanlandingham Estate near the TOY office because there is no emergency shelter equipped to fairly accomodate LGBT people in Charlotte.

It’s not even just a problem in my hometown. There are barely any emergency LGBT shelter options in the entire Bible Belt. Per CenterLink, an online database of LGBT centers across the United States, only North Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee provide some kind of emergency services for LGBT youth, even if it is not in the form of a stand-alone shelter. Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky do not even have LGBT centers.

There are no local statistics about the number of homeless LGBT youth in the Carolinas. Typically, surveyors do not ask the sexual orientation of homeless populations in North Carolina. Homeless LGBT youth, which makes up 20-40 percent of the general homeless population in the United States, are still an invisible population in my state. If you consider that San Francisco just started collecting demographic information about the sexual orientation of homeless people for the first time this year, who knows when North Carolina will start compiling that data?

There are a handful of options and partnerships in Charlotte for the LGBT youth who need help, although they are not always ideal. TOY offers temporary home services in the form of a host home program for young people over 18. Volunteers can host a young person based on a set criteria the youth must meet to enter and stay in the program. If there is no shelter space available, those between the ages of 11 and 20, can go to The Relatives, a shelter for all homeless youth with strong ties to TOY. If that is not available, local 24-hour French Bakery Amelie’s buys the youth a coffee, drops them off at 9 p.m., and picks them up at 8 a.m. the next morning to go back to the TOY offices to figure out the next step.

Some youth congregate at the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte. TOY executive director Rodney Tucker says LGBT youth band together there to avoid physical and verbal harassment in the shelter. For transgender individuals of color, particularly those whose legal gender markers are male but present as female, the Men’s Shelter is one of the few emergency housing options. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey, put together by the National Black Justice Coalition and National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, found that black transgender people, especially those whose gender marker is male when they present as female, have difficult experiences at emergency shelters. From the homeless individuals that tried to access the shelters, 40 percent were denied access altogether, 61 percent experienced harassment and 32 percent were physical assaulted at the shelter.

In the end, wouldn’t it be better if there were more stand-alone shelters to help the LGBT young people who simply need to feel welcomed and safe?

One of the rare stand-alone shelters for homeless LGBT people in the South is Lost-n-Found. Rick Westbrook founded it two years ago. To put it in context, a 2012 report estimated there were 900 LGBT homeless youth in Atlanta, but since the shelter’s opening, he’s helped 253 LGBT young people.

Westbrook’s community-funded  shelter houses six LGBT young people at one time. He says 50 percent of the LGBT people who come through the doors are lesbians and lesbian couples. Sixty percent of the homeless LGBT people he serves are African-American. He attributes the high number of African-American LGBT youth to the pressure in conservative churches to remain closeted.

A pending federal bill, if enacted, could add LGBT protections to the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act. Representatives Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore, Wisconsin Democrats, introduced this bill to Congress on August 1. It would require all shelters that receive federal grants to obtain competency skills on how to serve LGBT youth and for the federal government to gather data about homeless LGBT youth. The bill has been waiting for consideration by a House committee since September. While it’s a great stride, it would not help Lost-n-Found and Time Out Youth, and other LGBT emergency shelter services or housing programs, that don’t receive federal funding.

I deeply support the addition of more emergency LGBT shelter services in the Bible Belt. I now volunteer at TOY, where I teach creative writing classes to the youth. I want to be there for them in any way I can until the day we get better emergency services in our state and surrounding area. I was lucky to be born to open-minded, loving parents who accepted me. They fed, clothed and housed me so I could graduate from college and start a career. I want the same human dignity for every young member of our community.

JOANNE SPATARO is a writer based in North Carolina.

Seeing marriage equality at work in the Bible Belt is heartening for this native Okie

By Guest Blogger

By Mark Phariss

Several weeks ago, I read an article about two women, Kaitlyn Henson and Jessica Upton, tying the knot before the Comanche County District Judge Ken Harris in Lawton, Oklahoma. This news left me almost speechless, grasping to comprehend that same-sex couples can marry in Lawton while Vic, my partner of 17 years, and I still can’t marry in Texas.

See, I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s in Lawton, the third largest city in Oklahoma with a population then of about 75,000. Lawton was a conservative town, its largest employer being Fort Sill, a U.S. Army base.

Shortly after moving to Lawton in 1962, my twin sister, my younger brother and I were baptized at the First United Methodist Church. Later, our family joined St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, also in Lawton.

My mother, who read the Bible each morning, made sure my siblings and I attended church service every Sunday and vacation bible school every summer. At home, we regularly sang religious songs around the piano, including “Do Lord,” “Clap Your Hands,” and “Heaven is a Happy Place.”

A painting of Jesus hung in my bedroom and other religious knickknacks decorated our house. I read the Bible regularly and at one point in my youth I wanted to be a preacher. My paternal grandmother, Maggie Phariss, a stern but loving woman born in the late 1800s, encouraged me by saying she “always wanted a redheaded Baptist preacher in the family.” (I ultimately opted to be a redheaded lawyer instead.)

From at least age 6, I knew I was gay. And I didn’t want to be. I prayed almost nightly for the Lord to make me straight. Or, if He/She wouldn’t make me straight, I prayed not to wake up, to be taken in my sleep. Many nights I cried myself to sleep.

Although I was a relatively happy child, I struggled with the usual teenage angst. But mostly I struggled with the recognition I was gay. I simply couldn’t figure out why I was or how to change it.

I feared that, if I was found out, I would lose all my friends. “Fag” or “queer” were the worst insults one could hurl at another when I was growing up, and one of the two fights I ever had in my life (other than with my younger brother) was when a kid in junior high called me a faggot. I have no idea why he did that, and although I lost the fight, I won the war because no one in junior high or high school ever called me that again — at least not to my face.

A junior high classmate recently told me he and others resisted being friends with me because they suspected I might be gay and, in his case, he literally was afraid his father would beat him if I later turned out to be gay.

When I was 17, just a junior in high school, the former Miss Oklahoma Anita Bryant began her successful, and hateful, “save the children” campaign to repeal a Dade County, Florida ordinance that simply prohibited discrimination against gays in housing, employment and public accommodations. In 1978, the following year, the Oklahoma legislature passed a law allowing Oklahoma public schools to fire teachers for “advocating” homosexuality. Presumably, “advocating” included being openly gay or supporting equal rights for gays and lesbians. (The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the law unconstitutional.)

As a person who has always followed the news, all of these developments scared and scarred me. I worried I would not be able to get a job or rent an apartment and would wind up homeless and penniless. In short, if I needed a reason to keep my sexual orientation a secret, I had them in spades. Even to this day, it is still perfectly legal in 29 states, including Oklahoma and Texas, to fire someone simply because of their sexual orientation.

When my parents died in 1986 within two months of each other, I was distraught. Only 26 years old, I was just out of law school and my parents were gone. Still deeply closeted, I honestly believed I had just lost the only people in the world who might still love me despite being gay.

It took me years to realize that God didn’t make me gay to hate me, that despite my repeated prayers — both as a teen and as a young adult — there was a reason God didn’t make me straight or take me in my sleep. I now know that there was nothing wrong with me, that being gay is a gift, and that it has made me far more compassionate, caring and open-minded than I might otherwise have been.

Now, 36 years after I graduated from high school in Lawton, gays and lesbians are able to marry in 32 states, including Oklahoma. Thanks are owed to Sharon Baldwin and Mary Bishop, the two lead Oklahoma plaintiffs who, along with their lawyers, bravely sued Oklahoma 10 years ago after the state passed a same-sex marriage ban. Because of that lawsuit, not only were they able to marry in Oklahoma, but also a same-sex couple was able to marry in my hometown where I never, ever dreamed one could.

Because of them — and the tireless work over decades of many advocates, allies and organizations too numerous to name — more gay and lesbian couples, including Vic and me, are one step closer to being able to marry in those states, like Texas, that still do not permit it. And more gay and lesbian children in Oklahoma and across this great nation will go to sleep tonight praying they will one day find the love of their life to marry, rather than that they won’t wake up.

Mark Phariss is a Plano, Texas corporate attorney. He and his partner of 17 years, Vic Holmes, are co-plaintiffs in the Texas case challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ ban on same-sex marriages, which is now pending before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

At religious liberty conference, pastors told to hold the line on gay relationships

At religious liberty conference, pastors told to hold the line on gay relationships

RACHEL ZOLL | Associated Press

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Christopher Yuan leads a prayer during the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission National Conference, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, in Nashville, Tenn. Southern Baptists organized the three-day event to strengthen the resolve of Christians preaching the increasingly unpopular view that gay relationships are sinful.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than a thousand evangelical pastors and others – gathered for a three-day conference to steel the resolve of Christians who preach that gay relationships are sinful – were asked a simple question: How many live in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage?

Hands rose all across the convention hall.

“This moral revolution is happening at warp speed,” said the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “This is a real challenge to us on biblical authority.”

Speakers at the event said they understood they were on the losing end of the culture war on marriage. But they were prepared to be the voice of a moral minority because gay marriage is a “rejection of God’s law,” according to Mohler. He said evangelicals needed to have “a lot of agonizing conversations” about how to move forward.

The conference, called “The Gospel, Homosexuality and the Future of Marriage,” is taking place not only against the backdrop of expanding gay marriage, but also amid a small but vocal movement of evangelicals who publicly advocate greater acceptance of gays.Several of the advocates attended the conference and held behind-the-scenes meetings with evangelical leaders to seek common ground.

“My goal here is to meet as many people as I can who disagree with me and talk over coffee,” said Justin Lee, founder of the Gay Christian Network, during a break at the opening session Monday. His organization brings together Christians who differ over whether gays faithful to the Bible should remain celibate or can have same-sex relationships.

Southern Baptist leaders said they would be expressing their views in a way that was humble and compassionate, but rooted in the theological belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Each participant was given a bagful of books and pamphlets, with titles such as, “Love Into Light: The Gospel, The Homosexual and The Church,” and “Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor,” meant to help pastors articulate their stand against same-sex relationships.

Mohler, the most prominent Southern Baptist intellectual, said from the stage that he was wrong years ago when he said same-sex attraction could be changed.

The Rev. Russell Moore, director of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which organized the conference, drew applause when he condemned anti-gay bullying and called on Christians to address the problem of homelessness for gay and lesbian youth as “a human dignity issue.” He said parents shouldn’t shun their gay children.

Rev. Russell Moore, left, director of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, leads a discussion during the group’s national conference Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, in Nashville, Tenn. Southern Baptists organized the three-day event to strengthen the resolve of Christians preaching the increasingly unpopular view that gay relationships are sinful.

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“You’ve been given a mission of reconciliation,” Moore told the audience. “Jesus is not afraid to speak with truth, but Jesus is not shocked by people or disgusted by people.”

However, some speakers took a harder line. Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm defending Christian business owners and others who refuse to serve gay weddings, said it was a myth that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, was a hate crime. He argued gays wanted “unfettered sexual liberty” while silencing all dissent.

Most of the morning sessions Tuesday featured Christians such as Rosaria Butterfield who had been attracted to members of the same-sex but say they were now married to someone of the opposite sex or had overcome their attractions.

Butterfield said evangelicals need to “repent of anti-gay rhetoric,” and befriend gays and lesbians instead of trying to “fix” them.(Moore said Southern Baptists do not support “reparative therapy” for gays based on psychological counseling and do not believe people can necessarily eliminate same-sex attraction. But he said the denomination believes Gospel teaching can help people live chastely while being attracted to people of the same gender.)

Matthew Vines, author of “God and the Gay Christian,” has drawn more than 800,000 views on YouTube for his lecture challenging the theology that drives evangelical opposition to same-gender relationships.

He said he was encouraged that some speakers have been “approaching the conversation with more respect and sensitivity than has often been the case in the past.” But he said their stand on gay relationships still “causes serious harm to LGBT people.”

Vines met privately with Mohler, who had written an e-book response to Vines, titled “God and the Gay Christian?” Both men said the meeting was a cordial discussion of Scripture and they planned to stay in touch. Separately, about two dozen Christian advocates for gay acceptance and evangelical leaders who participated in the conference also met privately Monday night. Participants agreed they would not comment afterward.

In an interview, Mohler said he expected to see some evangelical churches splitting off to accept gay relationships in years ahead. Evangelicals in the millennial generation, ages 18-33, are twice as likely as their elders to support same-sex marriage, according to a survey released in February by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Southern Baptists last month cut ties with a California congregation, New Heart Community Church, whose pastor accepted same-sex marriage after his son came out as gay. But Moore believes only a small minority of evangelicals will come to accept same-sex relationships as they struggle with expressing their opposition in the current climate.

“I’m not worried about churches in our tradition conforming to the culture. I’m worried about them not effectively engaging the culture,” Moore said in an interview. “We have to be able to speak with conviction about what we believe. We have to speak to people.”

Alabama appeals court voids same-sex partner’s child visitation order

Alabama appeals court voids same-sex partner’s child visitation order

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama appeals court says a judge can’t order child visitation following the split-up of a same-sex couple.

The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled Friday that a Jefferson County judge was wrong to order child visitation for a woman who split up with her partner of 16 years.

The county judge based the decision on an adoption ruling issued in a Georgia case. But the Alabama appeals court says the ruling can’t stand because the Georgia court lacked the power to issue such an order.

The judges say the woman can’t have legal visitation rights in Alabama since she can’t have them in Georgia.

The ruling goes against a woman whose female partner gave birth to three children through artificial insemination.

Neither Alabama nor Georgia recognizes same-sex marriage.

Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant

Mississippi’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Challenged in Federal Court; Attorney Roberta Kaplan Brings Suit on Behalf of Two Couples and the Campaign for Southern Equality

A federal challenge to Mississippi’s law banning same-sex marriage was filed today in the Southern District of Mississippi on behalf of two same-sex couples, – Andrea Sanders and Rebecca Bickett, and Jocelyn Pritchett and Carla Webb – and the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE). Campaign for Southern Equality, et. al. v. Bryant, et. al. challenges the constitutionality of marriage laws in Mississippi that ban marriage between same-sex couples and deny recognition of same-sex marriages performed out of state.

Lawsuit documents are available at: http://bit.ly/1ybt7Ac

Mississippi’s gay marriage ban challenged in federal court

Mississippi’s gay marriage ban challenged in federal court

By Ashton Pittman October 20, 2014

Deep South Daily

While Becky Bickett and Andrea Sanders apply for a marriage license in Jackson, Mississippi, one of their twin sons – whose adoptions were only completed the day before – makes friends with Hinds County Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn. Though Dunn said she was required by state law to deny their request for a marriage license, she made a promise: “When the law changes, I’ll change with it.” Their request for a license was part of a series of actions by the We Do Campaign and the Campaign for Southern Equality on March 25, 2014. / Photo by Ashton Pittman

The attorney who successfully  argued for the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in United States v. Windsor has a new target: Mississippi. Lead counsel Roberta Kaplan filed a suit Monday against Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage on behalf of two Mississippi couples and the Campaign for Southern Equality, which issued an afternoon press release announcing the suit. Kaplan was joined by local counsel Robert McDuff of McDuff & Byrd in Jackson.

“As the lawyers who represented Edie Windsor, we are so honored to be able to file this case today on behalf of Rebecca Bickett, Andrea Sanders, Jocelyn Pritchett, Carla Webb, and the Campaign for Southern Equality,” Kaplan said. “The Supreme Court took a gigantic step forward last year in Windsor, and since then, dozens of courts around the country have followed suit so that today, gay people in thirty-two states have the right to marry.

“It is now time to take the next big step by making sure that gay families in Mississippi are accorded these same protections. The Supreme Court has made it clear that no matter where a gay person lives —whether it is in Maine, Minnesota, or Mississippi—our Constitution requires that they be treated with the same dignity and respect under the law as everyone else.”

The 2013 Windsor ruling overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing gay marriages even when performed in states that recognize them. That ruling set the stage for the barrage of pro-marriage equality rulings that have followed since.

Activists, led by Campaign for Southern Equality Executive Director Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, march for marriage equality in Jackson, Mississippi on March 25, 2014. / Photo by Ashton Pittman

“It’s time we are able to live with legal protections in our home state,” said plaintiff Jocelyn Pritchett, a Mississippi native who shares a son with her partner, Carla Webb. “We love Mississippi – it is home for us and we have many beautiful friends and family members here. We hope to help create a Mississippi that reflects the hospitality of her people – by creating a legally safe environment for all Mississippi families.”

In Mississippi, 26 percent of gay couples are raising children, according to the Williams Institute. That means that – despite Mississippi’s poor record on LGBT rights – Mississippi has the highest proportion of LGBT couples raising children in the United States.

“My family is no less a family than any other,” said plaintiff Rebecca Bickett, who is raising twin sons with her partner Andrea Sanders, who she’s been with for ten years. Despite their long relationship, they have been unable to afford to travel out-of-state to wed.

“All across Mississippi, we work with loving, committed LGBT families who are proud to call the state home. But they also suffer the harms of discrimination daily. Equality cannot come quickly enough to Mississippi for these families,” says Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality.

The filings for the lawsuit, Campaign for Southern Equality, et al. v. Bryant, can be seen here.

One man’s quest to undermine his cousin’s marriage to a transgender man

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ROB WATSON
Dad, LGBT activist, businessman and blogger, evoL

Sunday, October 12, 2014

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Nick, a transgender male, and his wife Jessica

Once upon a time there were two cousins, Jessica and Robby. They grew up together in the warm and wet Mississippi back lands. They swam, they fished and Jessica loved and respected her cousin. He gave her the sense of understanding family and loyalty.

That sense of family and loyalty was upended completely recently when Robby recently ran to the American Family Association — an entity defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate” organization — to get their help in humiliating and attacking Jessica’s marriage. Robby has never met Jessica’s husband.

Jessica and her husband, Nick, are legally married. Nick is a transgender male. A mutual friend introduced them a few years ago.

Jessica states:

“Nick has been my best friend since day one. We can always count on the other one during the hardest times in life. While he was in paramedic school, Nick felt my full encouragement through the whole way and I never gave up on his dream with him.  We stand by each other through every thing just as a husband and wife should. I know at the end of the day I can count on him and that’s what real romance looks like. Our love is the kind some people only dream about and I’m very lucky to be able to say I found that in this life with him.”

On the afternoon of September 23, Jessica got a private message from her cousin Robby out of the blue.

It said: “Jessica, I want you to know that I love you both as a person and as my family. You hand I practically grew up together, and I don’t want you to think that I am angry with you. But I have to tell you that what you and Nick are doing is wrong, and I am going to be doing all that I can to challenge it. I realize this might upset you, but I have to do what is right as difficult as it is going to be.”

Jessica had no idea what he meant about “challenging it,” but she was soon to find out.

That evening, Robby posted this to his Facebook wall: “Last week I learned of a same sex marriage that took place right here in the state of Mississippi. Two females, one of which is a family member of mine, applied for and was granted an official marriage license in Desoto county. One of the partners poses as a man and managed to obtain a driver’s license that legally identified her as a male. I would like to urge all Mississippians who are outraged to join me. This is a battle that has come to us and we cannot afford to lose traditional marriage.”Then he then gave the phone numbers of the attorney general, lieutenant governor and the governor.

Around midnight, Jessica received another private message from a woman she had never met.

“You need to see this video,” the message said. The video was her cousin Robby on a show with the AFA’s Bryan Fisher. Bryan Fisher is infamous for homophobic statements that include the encouragement of the kidnapping of children from LGBT families. They were making public Jessica and Nick’s names, implying that they were criminals, that their marriage was a fraud scheme and stating out and out lies as fact.

Click here to watch the Video

“The video makes it seem like we did all of this to pull one over on the state of Mississippi, and that’s nowhere close to the truth.” Jessica said.

“Mine is not an illegal marriage in any state, because it is not a same sex union at all. That is not legal in this state, and there is no ‘loop hole’ for that to be possible. Nick actually transitioned from female to male, and had his name and gender legally changed complete with birth certificate, social security card, drivers license, and all medical licenses. After all of that was completed we were able to apply for our marriage license and got married, the same as any other opposite gender couple.” Bryan Fisher characterizes Jessica and Nick as two lesbians, one of which had a hormone shot, and then fraudulently had records changed.

Nick’s process to his correct gender started before 2010. He had undergone full psychiatric exams in preparation. In 2010 he started a permanent hormone therapy program and had physiological operations in support of his transition.

Nick works as a paramedic saving lives and he has been seen as a true hero in his community. The AFA’s intrusion into his private life, and their dishonest portrayal has now caused him issues at work.

Jessica reports, “While he is out saving strangers lives, we have to worry about the safety of our family and his career. It takes teamwork from his fellow co-workers and since the videos and articles have come out, he has been treated like an outcast.”

Many that Nick worked with had only known of him as male, his actual gender. Now feel they have license to judge.

Jessica reached out to the popular Twitter site Stop-Homophobia. “Help us,” she asked, attaching a link to the AFA video. She began hearing from many people who have showered love and support. Those messages helped her deal with her feelings of betrayal and crisis over what family was supposed to be about.

“For me when I saw the video I felt it was one of the worst betrayals ever, to find out that someone made us out so horribly, and on top of it for it to come from a family member. The feelings we felt over this outrage, words can’t describe. We are being vilified for the same loving and commitment other married Mississippi couples share with each other. Our right to commit to each other for the rest of time is being portrayed as everything it’s not. The video want to portray us as deceivers who did all of this to pull one over on the state of Mississippi, and that’s nowhere close to the truth. The truth is our marriage is built out of the love we have for each other.”

“We are very grateful for the support and love that we have come across through this attempt to humiliate us,” Jessica states. “So much of our family have stepped up and let us know they are open minded and accepting and loving. The members of Nick’s family are powerful defenders of him as a man and a hero. Especially his dad, who has always been his biggest supporter. My family accepts Nick as the person for who he really is, especially my sister and most of them right here in Mississippi.”

This has given Jessica and Nick a new definition to, not the word “marriage,” but the word “family.”

Blood cousin Robby is not family. The “American Family Association” is not an association of families; it is an association of those who want to attack families that do not look exactly like a set of limited parameters. Those who see his life saving work but who cannot see Nick as he is, are not family. It is the people who love, support and celebrate him who are the true family, and Jessica and Nick are blessed to have many who have such qualifications in their lives.

“Nick taught me what marriage is,” Jessica commented. “Now someone I grew up with has caused me to re-look at what I thought being family meant. It does not mean blood and telling falsehoods to meet an agenda. It means love and honesty. I stand corrected, and we are now a stronger family as a result.”

Sharing DNA is no big deal. A person’s ability to look deep, push past their own pre-conceived notions to better understand a family member they love, and then stand up for them, that ability brings the greatest value in life. Some will learn they have that ability within themselves and stand proud. Others will make videos.