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On National Freedom to Marry Day, Thursday, February 12, 2009, at local marriage counters in cities all over the country, same-sex couples will request marriage licenses at their local County Clerk’s Offices to raise awareness of the harms and impact the inability to marry causes on their families.“Whether we are married, domestic partnered, civil unioned or legal strangers under our particular state law, all same-sex couples are denied the 1,138 federal rights of marriage,” says Join the Impact. “With the support of President Obama and with the growing sea change towards supporting protections for same-sex couples, we are hopeful that we can finally turn our attention to overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996, and work together to uphold the American tradition of fairness and equality by ending marriage discrimination once and for all.”
“Since 2001, Marriage Equality USA chapters have engaged in these annual marriage counter actions to render visible the discrimination that is enforced every day. It is an affront to our basic dignity as fellow human beings when same-sex couples are turned away from the marriage counter, but it gives us the opportunity to tell our stories and show that we live in every community and want to honor and protect our families like everyone else,” said Geoff Scowcroft and Peter Wolf, Marriage Equality USA, Los Angeles County Chapter Leaders. “Marriage discrimination is wrong and harms real-life families. All Americans deserve equal treatment under the law. The time has come.”
“There are already 18,000 same-sex couples married in California. We want to honor those marriages and encourage the California Supreme Court to extend this opportunity to others who wish to marry, but will once again be turned away until Proposition 8 is repealed.” said Geoff Scowcroft. Straight allies, supportive clergy and married same-sex couples are invited to support the couples seeking licenses
However, due to the holiday and some offices being closed, other parts of the country will have their actions on different days. A complete list of days and times are listed in the document below:
Valentine Events 09
More Valentine's Day actions are being planned. See the Unite the Fight calendar at the bottom of the blog.
I think it's important to note that L.A. and Orange Counties are two of those places where the action is taking place on Friday the 13th, because government offices are closed on Lincoln's Birthday.
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