 "Photo: Larissa Meuller")
It was unusually warm at the end of a week that charted record low temperatures only days before. More than 100 people welcomed a resurgence of sunshine Saturday at the City Hall plaza for the culmination of national "Freedom to Marry Week."
"Mother Nature is behind us," said Owen Egerton, founder of The Right to Marry, a local gay-rights group. Egerton emceed the event, which consisted of a mass wedding ceremony for both gay and straight couples opposed to legal restrictions on same-sex marriage. Fellow organizations Atticus Circle and Equality Texas co-sponsored the ceremony and Better Batter Bakery donated a giant cake.
About 40 couples celebrated their nuptials on the plaza with the Rev. Mary Wilson of Cedar Park presiding. Although their union will not be recognized by the State of Texas, participants at the ceremony were not deterred from declaring their vows before God and man.
"We gather today, because we believe that God wants us to be together in committed relationships," Wilson said.
In 2005, Texans voted to amend the state constitution to outlaw marriages between same-sex couples. Currently, Massachusetts is the only state in the union where gay couples can be legally married. New England neighbors Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut offer state recognized civil unions.
Austin Community College student Heidi Vance told the story of how she and her partner experienced a brief period of government-sanctioned matrimony.
"We lived in California for a while, where we were able to have a domestic partnership that gave us some of the rights of marriage, but here in Texas, we don't have any of the rights of marriage," she said. Vance said she and her partner Alison Little have been together in a loving, committed relationship for six years.
"We share a house, we share a bank account, we share a cat," Little said. "That's what marriage is. What the government is doing is failing to legally protect this relationship that already exists."
Various speakers at the ceremony, including Vance and Little, pointed to a litany of rights unattainable by same-sex couples, including the right to file a joint federal income tax return and the right to abstain from testifying against your spouse in court.
City councilman Brewster McCracken spoke at the event in favor of "freedom for all folks, gay and straight, to marry the people they love." The councilman addressed the crowd with his young son in tow, saying he hoped to "raise him right."
"What's so threatening about a little freedom here on the steps of city hall?" McCracken asked.
Egerton said he hoped the ceremony and the week of activities that preceded it would help people come to see the right to marry as a civil rights issue and not merely a gay one. On Valentine's Day, gay couples sought marriage licenses in courts around the country to no avail.
UT radio-television-film senior Jake Holbrook, who participated in the ceremony with his partner Rodney Gonzales, said he believes public events like the mass wedding ceremony are important to expose people to the reality of gay rights issues.
"All too often when it's portrayed in the media, people don't get to see actual faces," Holbrook said waiting in line for a slice of wedding cake as Rare Earth's "I Just Want to Celebrate" played in the background.
Marti Bier, field director for Atticus Circle, which focuses on mobilizing members of the heterosexual community for gay rights issues, said it was important for straight couples to participate in the ceremony as well. "Every civil rights movement is moved forward mostly because the 'haves' participate," Bier said.
Little invoked Martin Luther King Jr. as she defended optimism for those gathered at the plaza.
"I believe we will see civil equality in our lifetime," she said, "but it's going to happen with one heart opening up at a time. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward freedom."
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