Straight Couples Join in Vows of Commitment at Protest Event in Arlington
“This is not our choice,” [said Jay Fisette, Arlington County Board member] “It’s been thrust upon us. . . . We yearn for the day when these gestures are not viewed as threatening. We are not there yet. Our state has been slow to understand, slow to shed its fear.”
Washington Post
January 23, 2006
By Stephanie McCrummen
In a gesture of love that has become in Virginia, as elsewhere, a gesture of political protest, about 60 gay and heterosexual couples, some young and others who’ve been together 25 years or more, reaffirmed their vows of commitment yesterday in a ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington.
Coming days after a Maryland judge ruled that a state law banning same-sex marriage is discriminatory and as Virginia legislators consider a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, the ceremony had an air of celebration and defiance.