InterstateQ.com

Various news pieces from the past two weeks

Here are some snippets and links from articles about Soulforce Q’s Right to Marry Campaign from the past two weeks…

SoulForce Youth in NY to Lobby on Marriage link
By: ANDY HUMM
07/26/2007 Gay City News
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Thirty-five young people from SoulForce Q, mostly from out of state, fanned out across New York this week to lobby legislators on the bill opening marriage to gay couples that passed the Democrat-led Assembly in June but is stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Matthew Nelson, 26, the co-director of the group’s Right to Marry Campaign, told Gay City News from Nyack that “people of my generation really care about marriage equality.” A resident of California, he said that he and his partner of two-and-a-half years are set to sign up as domestic partners there in the only other state where at least one branch of the legislature has approved a marriage equality law. A 2005 measure passed by both the Assembly and the Senate in California was vetoed by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SoulForce Protests State Senator Diaz link
July 26, 2007 New York Press
Gay rights activists from the New York chapter of SoulForce stopped by the Bronx office of State Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz today to demand a meeting with him on passing legislation in the State Senate to legalize same-sex marriage in New York State (the Assembly has already passed a bill calling for it).

Rev. Diaz is perhaps the strongest Democratic opponent of same-sex marriage in the State, and SoulForce organizer Matthew Nelson said his group was hoping to meet with the state senator to change his mind on the issue. But Rev. Diaz denied a request for a meeting, stating that his mind is already made up on the issue and no meeting would ever change that.

So without a meeting SoulForce decided instead to take their fight to the streets, handing out literature to passers-by, reading from the Bible and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, in particular emphasizing the “and justice for all” closing line. The group also sent two bouquets of flowers to Rev. Diaz’s office, with one of the cards reading “please let this [sic] roses remind you of the flower my daughter will never walk down the aisle holding.”

Young adults campaign for same-sex marriage in New York link
By ANDREA VanVALKENBURG
Staff Writer, Plattsburgh Press-Republican

PLATTSBURGH — Brian Murphy recently left a pair of shoes with Sen. Joseph Bruno’s staff, asking the New York representative to walk a mile in his shoes.

The California man was one of 32 young adults who fanned out across New York to meet with residents and legislators in support of the New York State Equality of Marriage Act and the right for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender New Yorkers to marry.

“There’s such a need for this,” Murphy said when eight members of Soulforce Q, a national interfaith organization, stopped in Plattsburgh during their two-week Right to Marry Campaign across the state.

“Marriage is a right that should be protected for everyone.”

Video from the North Van of the Right to Marry Campaign
The following video was put together by me and Brian Murphy.

The Right to Marry Campaign
Put together for the Right to Marry Campaign by Brian Murphy