 What are you looking at? What are you looking at? It's the whole thing. You're looking at someone? I don't know. I'm not looking at you. I'm not staring. I'm looking at someone. I'm not staring. I'm not staring. I'm not staring. If you look at me, I'm not staring. I'm not staring. There are also three viewers who are seeing this, possibly hearing our conversation. Tweet at Camron. We're rolling in. You should tweet at rolling in. We're only three of you. We're like my buddies. Alright, let's see what we can do. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Welcome back everyone. Again, my name is John Baker. I'm a literary manager here at WOLI, and I'm moderating the second part of tonight, which is a town hall-style discussion with some really wonderful folks on the topic of same-sex marriage. And for those of you with smartphones, and for those of you who use Twitter, I'm going to say something that you very rarely hear in the theater. I would love for you to turn your phone on to take your iPhones out, to take your... So take your phones out, and this is because this conversation is actually being live streamed on New Play TV thanks to our friends over at Irina's stage. So thank you to our friends over there and the New Play Institute. So they have set us up tonight. So this is being live streamed, and that's what the camera over there is. And for those of you with Twitter, you can follow along. You can participate in the conversation using the hashtag right behind me, WOLI8. If you have questions and you really can't see to get your questions out there, you can do that via Twitter. And I'm relying on Cameron over in the corner over here to follow along on Twitter and any interesting questions that come up. He will raise them. So that's how that's going to work. And so what I want to say is that really one of the wonderful things about working at a theater in the nation's capital is that I'm up on stage with all of these amazing people who have done really amazing things in relations to the same sex marriage conversation. And so what I'd like to do is just start off this part of the evening by having each of you guys introduce yourselves and give us a sense, contextualize sort of where you fit into the same sex marriage conversation. And that's how we'll start. And then after that, that'll give everybody out here a sense of your expertise and where you're coming from. We'll open it up to everybody for questions. So for anybody in the theater and anybody online using Twitter, we'll open it up. And that's how the evening's going to work. So without further ado, I'm going to pass the mic over and have you guys introduce yourselves. Thanks. My name is Peter Rosenstein and I'm president of a group called Campaign for All DC Families. What that is is the organization was put together predominantly to unite the groups in DC that were fighting for marriage equality. Back in 2005, there was a threat to have an initiative or a referendum against same sex marriage in DC. And a couple of us sat down and put together a group called Foundation for All DC Families. To fight that need be. We then turned that into a campaign that had to do with the political efficacy of doing a 501C4 which would allow us to lobby and raise money which a C3 wouldn't. So many of us have been in this battle for a long time. And I think if you look at DC, we were very fortunate aside from having people like David and others on the council who moved this forward, but way back in 1977 with the Charter of Amendment Act, we were lucky enough not to allow an initiative and referendum on marriage equality in DC. We didn't have to go through what Maryland and other states are going through. So many of us have been involved in this fight for a long time. Thank you Peter. I'm right here in the executive director of the National and Lesbian Task Force. We're based here in DC, although have staff all over the country. And we have been involved in a number of ballot measures, all of the ballot measures really across the country having to do with marriage, especially Prop 8, and we helped turn the field campaign for Prop 8 and then our colleagues in the legal organizations you've seen tonight they're working here tonight with the actors. But I guess I actually want to make a personal connection to Prop 8 which is that my spouse Margaret and I are one of the 18,000 of those California married couples who married in the window and we are actually married by the transgender man who argued the original case in front of the California Supreme Court to get marriage in California. So Prop 8 as it continues to play out is in fact deeply personal as well as how I and the Task Force spend many of our days. One of the perspectives that we have had on marriage over time is to spend a lot of human and financial resources on marriage but also to make sure that in the context of the humanity of our lives that we continue to lift up the many other issues that are important to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in our families. Marriage is one of them and others are as well. Any questions come up, I can speak to that. And the last thing I'll say before turning over to David is I was so struck by the timeliness of this and the time-capsulness of it. It was only a couple of years ago and it is astonishing how much has happened in this country in that very short period of time including the last month. And tomorrow for those of you who didn't see it, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will actually issue a decision on whether or not it will go for embank in here the case there or not. If not, then we'd certainly expect the opponents to push to bring it before the Supreme Court soon. So, if we were having this tomorrow night, we might actually have both of them. Good evening. I think it's been a bit of a pity I'm here. I'm the author of the Marriage Quality Bill in the District. I will pronounce that I was told that the dress would be casual. It's a true story. A true story. A true story. I'm sure this crowd would make coffee nervous. So, I often built and also played Marriage Quality in the District, but there's a lot of fun sub-stories. When I'm watching this play it's about, this is not interesting, in a funny-ha-ha way, but it's interesting that we're living this street. I made the decision to go forward to Marriage Quality. Surely I would have thought Obama was elected. I appreciated the fact that early in the term is the time in which big decisions can be made that typically become the president is who's going to lose. We didn't realize how much, but that there would be a reduction in congressional majority if you had it, and so you wanted to strike early. And so, I made the decision in November and December of 2008 that we would go forward. I hopefully won the chance that there's interest in figuring out how we did that and the strategies that were being weighted. Our first decision was to recognize marriages that were performed outside of the city and kennels those under the tent. And that was quite a stroke of luck how that came down. Ultimately, we had success here with Marriage Quality. People look at the city and say, well, given the makeup of the council and the support of the majority of the members, at least on paper, that should have been a cable wall. But there's often a divide between what people will say and what people will do. And we have the misfortune of having been out of the thumb of Congress. And so, nothing that we do is easy. And I come in with coming fresh off Prop 8 and I think the unfair blaming of African-Americans for the defeat of Marriage Quality in Virginia, having this decision and having this discussion of the majority African-American community and ultimately prevailing, I thought was quite an exciting opportunity as a citizen of the city to watch. And so, there are many, many great stories, some that are published and some that aren't. And, you know, we're just there once upon a time. I'm published already, so hopefully we can share that. Hi, I'm Brian Baldwin. I'm the legal director for Human Rights Campaign. HRC is the largest national advocacy organization here in D.C. and along with our partners in many organizations who work similar to what the task force does in engaging with the state measures, including Maryland Campaign, New York, D.C., and others in recent years. What I do at HRC is actually on the federal level, working on federal policy questions, particularly around relationship recognition. We can't forget that aside from the state aspects of this, there are over 1,100 rights and benefits that come with marriage under federal law. And so, we want to work on trying to get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act which prevents recognition of marriages for those purposes. And also, as stated earlier, too, there's a lot that Congress likes to do to mettle, not just with marriage equality in D.C., but to find creative ways to collect unrecurrent possible representatives to inject the issue of marriage equality into anything we try to do to address the range of rights that we're trying to achieve with this community as re-noted. So, there's a strong federal dynamic to all of this work and that's a lot of what I do at HRC. We've also been very happy to support the efforts of our litigation partners, including Afer and in the Pakeh case, as a trend of the court, and also to try and bring some unusual voices to these conversations in court like the business community pointing out why marriage equality is important for them to be able to be successful as well. Thank you for having me. I'm Matt Nielsen. I'm Senior Counseling Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division Department of Justice. And as I was sitting here, I was thinking about that I joined the administration of a political appointee about three years ago, in June 2009. And in June 2009, I knew that I was going to be going to the Department of the Civil Rights Division to be part of that division, restoration, transformation, and to be the person who was going to oversee LGBT issues in the Civil Rights Division front office position, which you may be surprised to hear wasn't held in the previous administration. So, you know, I was very excited to do that. And just about a few days before, you know, everything was kind of public and confirmed. There was news in the blogosphere that the Department of Justice filed a brief in this case, Defending the Defensive Marriage Act that had what could fairly be described as incendiary language that relied on arguments that had been made in the past by previous administration defending Section 3 of the Defensive Marriage Act. And I had the good fortune at that time, June of 2009, to be invited to the White House LGBT Pride Reception that year. And, you know, I remember going to that reception and standing in line and people were like, well, what are you going to do? And I was like, well, I'm going to the Department of Justice, you know. Because I was a little bit gun shy at that point. You know, shouting that and proclaiming from the rooftop, because the community was quite incensed, you know, in retrospect, you know, justifiable. So, you know, I went there subsequently for lots of reasons. You know, the briefs began to change. They continued to defend the Defensive Marriage Act, but using different arguments, different rationale. The president was on record saying that he believed the Defensive Marriage Act was discriminatory and should be repealed. And that was the environment in which, you know, I was working for the first part. And as I fast-forward, you know, three years, it is nothing less than kind of mind-blowing the amount of change has occurred. Because now, you know, I've been invited to participate in this panel. You know, what has changed a couple of things? Well, the Department of Justice is no longer defending the Defensive Marriage Act. We're filing an affirmative release arguing that, you know, it is unconstitutional and that sexual orientation should be subjected to heightened scrutiny. Many of the arguments about immutability and political powerlessness that were discussed in the play tonight are those very arguments that, you know, were discussed and adopted by the Justice Department in arguing to courts that we have that the Defensive Marriage Act is unconstitutional and should be subjected to heightened scrutiny. A week ago, the First Circuit in Boston struck the Defensive Marriage Act down in the first quarter of appeals to do so, you know, a month ago. I think during the very same week that I was invited to participate in this panel, someone down the street decided to, you know, announce his support for marriage equality and that sort of changed the equation. And certainly for people working in the administration, you know, has made it somewhat easier to appear on panels and discuss about it. And the departments, you know, continues to actively politicize the Defensive Marriage Act and, you know, it's not the only issue right relating to LGBT equality that I've worked on in the past few years. We've passed, you know, the Hate Crimes Bill to Shepard and Matthew Shepard, James Wood Jr. to the Demention Act, which actually was very much involved in supporting the, you know, Supported Employment and Entrepreneurship Nation Act in 2009. You know, there have been multiple other advances on the executive branch front and then legislation has been supported and has necessarily passed to otherwise further dodging the equality. So, you know, the record is replete with a lot of conjures, a lot of forward advances. Of course, there's a lot more work left to do but, you know, if you fast... If someone told me three years ago that I'd be, you know, sitting on a panel here, you know, talking about same-sex marriage and then a president who supports it, you know, Court Appeals that struck down the Defensive Marriage Act, you know, the historic Proposition 8 case being tried and held on appeal and now it looks like tomorrow we're going to have another, you know, step forward in that case. You know, I don't know that I would have necessarily believed. Thank you. My name is Rich Madalino and I'm from, I think, Orion in the play. I'm, and do you use your current term? I'm one of the 1% and I am one of the 1% openly gay state legislatures. I am the first openly gay person elected to the Maryland General Assembly who ran as an openly gay person who was elected to the House of Delegate in 2002 and in 2006, I became the first and only openly gay person ever to serve in the Maryland State Senate. I'm a long-time fan, David Kitanya and Jim Graham and have watched what they've carefully built over time in the District of Columbia and we have steadily followed them a few steps behind which sometimes happens. But we are now in a position where after several years of me being the lead sponsor on the marriage following bill and my sky was in the Martinville Malle so you may have heard of that. Decided to take that bill from me and put it in this year and we managed to pass it. And now Maryland faces, in essence, the same ballot measure that you saw today. In fact, one of the certainly most entertaining characters in the Maggie Gallagher is a real-life frightening person who is based in our area because they're in Northern Virginia and she provided half the funds, half the funds to put our marriage law potentially on the ballot this year. The first campaign finance report shows half the money came from the National Organization for Marriage and if you want to know who they are I think they are now officially registered heat group. I characterized the heat group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. HRC has put out a website and it's called nonexposed.org. I'm 47, I'm trying to tweet. But nonexposed.org to visit that there are six people in this country who have provided like 95% of their funds and those six wealthy people are trying to overturn all of our rights, our rights in Maryland and this year potentially our rights in Minnesota and in Washington because there will be potentially four ballot measures coming over. One thing that's very important about what will be on the ballot in Maryland which is different than probably there will be specifically a measure to allow same-gender couples to marry. We passed the law, they're trying to repeal it so we will be before side in this issue and probably Washington State will be in the same position as will Maine. This question has only been on the ballot once before in Maine two or three years ago when we married narrowly and we did an effort to allow certain couples to marry. So we're going through new territory in Maryland but when we all sat and we watched those ads that were shown those are what you're going to see on television because probably everyone sitting in this room is part of the Washington media market oh by the way I represent Kensington, Wheaton, Silver Spring and Cherry Chase but all of you that all of you all of you are going to get to see those commercials on television and you're going to see that little girl leaving King and King who's one of my colleagues in the Louisville County but King and King on the Florida State Senate and I had read that book to my children so many times and he says, as boring as he made it sound I feel really bad but it's a cute book but we're going to hear that story because we're going to put those ads on the television here we've created an organization much like the campaign for all DC's families Marylanders for Marriage and Quality I tried to tweet it I put the hashtag up for it which is ND4ME and I hope all of you know where you are in the area will go to that website sign our pledge and join because we're going to need to put commercials on and answer those questions and it's not that it's about our children and I have two children this is what our governor did very effectively during the legislative session he made it about children of same gender couples and we went head on on that issue of not running away from the children issue but addressing it head on addressing it from the fact that we have children they are gay young people they deserve the same chance the same benefits that come with marriage so I look forward to your questions and comments and I really appreciate Wally doing this and I should say I really appreciate the work of HRC and GLTF and Quality of Maryland and all of those national partners we wouldn't be there so thank you thank you obviously to you guys so let's open it up I have so many questions but I want to open it up to the audience here and then also like I was saying on Twitter so questions questions for the panel and I think we have something in mind over here so let's start in the middle over here and I'm going to hand it to my audience so first of all thank you so much for being here for this event I felt like watching the play one of the underlying themes is that the courtroom is a great venue in which we can subject the arguments of same sex opponents their arguments to scrutiny across examination I felt like the play was silent however on the ability of these types of efforts to change personal and private opinions let's say the type of opinions held by the people that decided against testifying or someone that worked on Prop 8 the type of opinions that govern in a secret solitude atmosphere like the ballot box so I was just curious to hear the opinion of the panel as to to what extent do you guys feel that litigative efforts like the Prop 8 trial can change these type of opinions which may or may not have a basis in rational thought well I think there are two things one is that you there isn't always that debate do you change hearts and minds first or do you change the law first and the reality is that today or I should say last year they took a poll in Mississippi and the majority of residents of Mississippi still believe that the traditional marriage was wrong so if we're going to wait to change hearts and minds they may wait a long time even though the polls are changing dramatically and in the area of marriage equality the polls are usually 6 to 7 points behind what is actually there so if you're ahead by about 5 or 6 points in favor it's most probably about dead even so I think that what matters and what we didn't see and I think what Marilyn would be looking to is first of all people like the president and says I'm now in favor of gay marriage giving cover and courage to an incredible amount of people including the one in the LACP which hauls marriage now a civil right so I think what you're looking at is that changing hearts and minds slowly but nothing will end up doing it as quickly as the court will do it I think a lot of people are anticipating that the Massachusetts kids actually looking at our Supreme Court today will get there before the probate case Paul Smith who's counsel on that case the reality there is potentially that Justice Kennedy can turn around and get rid of section 3 of DOMA based on state's rights which is an easier thing potentially for him to do so I think we're moving there slowly but everyone here and everyone you know part of what the campaign did is coming out talking to people talking to everybody you know and donating a lot of money to the state of Maryland because the reality is we have to equal the kind of money that's going to be spent on the other side if Maryland will win marriage equality and I think that's every one of us the room, every friend we know and everybody out there I think I just to go back to the education obviously the probate trial was a little different than many of the marriage cases we had before because there was an actual trial and there was an examination of the facts and there were witnesses and most of these cases decided on summary judgment briefs, briefs, briefs and then boom you have a marriage case but I think two things first of all litigants are incredibly powerful spokespeople for this issue and you see them in the grocery store on the corner, these are folks who are getting up in front of putting their life sort of out there in its entirety for scrutiny and standing up and suing their government trying to advocate for themselves so I think all the folks that the litigation groups develop as plain as are tremendous spokespeople and I don't think we can underestimate the importance of those individuals and I do think despite the best efforts of the proponents of probate APR has done a tremendous job of getting every last detail of that trial out into the public I mean honestly sort of curtailing the ability to broadcast the trial actually just made people all the more interested in what actually happened in that courtroom and so I think this play and the efforts that they have done to push that out has done whatever the outcome of the litigation and I think an immeasurable amount of public education on this issue and so I wouldn't say that litigation is closed court rooms and people don't see the reality of what's happening to people and I'll just add part of what we've seen is that courts make decisions in a social political context and so changing hearts and minds over a very long period of time this is not an issue of conversations it actually goes back to the power of what many of us who are LGBT people have experienced in coming out that we tell our stories and the power of telling your story to your family, to co-workers does change hearts and minds and changes the social and political context in which legal decisions are being made and I there are multiple there's no one silver bullet if there was we'd all for our money and that we'd be done with but so do other things that happen states where we have achieved marriage equality that changes people that's fine and I think what we're seeing is and certainly the president we've seen a 20-point jump a 20-point jump in public opinion particularly among African-Americans in the last month if any of our organizations do just nothing on marriage we get a point a year we're just showing jumped 20 years in a month there's a reason that the president felt comfortable multiple reasons but a month now to come out publicly is because millions of people across the country have these conversations with their family members and their friends and they change each other's minds I'm just going to leave it contrary I don't believe that courts change minds I really do I think it is a very inside of the park even people who are well educated don't understand the difference between the district court and the federal court and the Supreme Court I just don't believe that courts have that big of a power they don't have I think legislative processes are important because you'll have hearings often they're televised and you can see your neighbors and I think in the DC marriage fight HSC did a fantastic job as well as Peter's group trying to educate people to come and tell their story during their testimony you have mothers and fathers and friends and maybe it was fantastic if I can share this one story that really brings us home I was in Vermont in March of 2009 when the issue was absolutely right and fun I was in Montpelier when the issue was before the Vermont Legislature it was just a bit of a background we were there but there was an organization I chaired called the National Legislative Association under restricted drug prices we were having a meeting there one of our members was then State Senator Ruby Shumlin who is now the governor of the National Legislative Association I put two things forward to this National Organization one, DC should be a state and hi, I'm a big fag everything was out of those terms what was interesting was how they all felt very comfortable because of my advocacy in the organization I knew for a long time to really start pushing and the subject of marriage was kind of a second tier track to what we were talking about with prescription drugs that Pete Shumlin as I said were in Vermont with people like Sharon Tree who was the major leader of the main senate one of the principal sponsors of the house and so on and so on there was one woman who was my vice chair one of my name was Cindy Rosenwald who is still a representative there and who is as lovely and as progressive a person as you will ever find over dinner New Hampshire had voted the week or two before Vermont in favor of marriage quality in their house and it was a close vote and I was talking to Cindy and I just assumed she had voted for it I was like wow that was a really close vote I mean how did we do it and she was like well I voted against it and I was like that was a vote were you talking about Willis I mean what I should tell you I did my background sitting with my friend for many years and I thought I had given him the office with respect to Cindy I had given her son a paid internship and then an internship with the attorney general of the district of Columbia raise your hands here if you thought I had given him the office and the Rosenwald and I was like Cindy what are you talking about how could you do this she's like well you know I don't even think that change will happen through television and I was like where is Cindy Rosenwald and what have you done with her you're a smart woman to do your advertising how are you going to be so crazy and she said well you know how could they believe that but then there was an even point of Cindy and the really point was when her colleagues said oh but what you don't understand is that Cindy actually saved marriage what she had voted on the on the prevailing side against marriage okay so when more of the Democrats finally arrived into the state house and conquered you know they had like 10,000 people say legislature and so what she did for that is finally right and Cindy was the deciding that Cindy moved the reconsideration and so Cindy moved the reconsideration which then put which kept it alive and the Senate of New Hampshire had hoped and prayed he would die in the house had she not moved that reconsideration there would not have been marriage in New Hampshire the end of the story is Cindy after I talked with her and I kind of had that let's profit and loss statement your girl you owe me and she became one of the principal champions she used to call me and tell me when this year the republic was right in the reverse of how they had slammed the door on the subject the point is courts don't change right you never know three is they never know how media and personal connections and all of these things come into play our answer is I because I wouldn't, this one doesn't agree with that but I get to come back to your question what struck me about the play is that this trial they refracted this social debate in such a clear way through the court proceeding I mean a lot of time they think of lawyers and legalese and things you know what actually happens in the courtroom for you know lawyers know isn't often easily understandable or readily translatable but that wasn't the case this trial was this fundamental social debate being played out in a courtroom exactly the terms I think in many ways you know that it's been reflective throughout our society in the public debate and I think many of the arguments that were very compelling in the trial are the kinds of arguments that have been compelling in the public debate arguments that organizations like HRC have refined in its own marriage equality campaign and you watch some of the ads that were done in New York it's your marriage equality listen to the messages and talk about love and what's emphasized in these messages because it has been shown to resonate is exactly what was brought out in this trial and as I was in here watching the play I had this flashback to my elementary school where I was in like Sunday school and they showed you know an heretical win this is like this kind of like the scopes trial of the century right this is the trial of the century it's this incredible contested social issue being fought out in the in the courtroom in a very compelling and ultimately we saw theatrical way dramatically there was an article in The New York Times a few weeks ago about gay on TV and how showing gay couples has impacted the public's view through television and one of the guys who's the co-creator and producer of Modern Family and many of us in this room watched he was actually a former news anchor in Madison, Wisconsin before he got into the show business and he said you know the rule of thumb newsroom was don't tell the audience that 2 million people are affected by this show one of the people affected and that's what we do on Modern Family and that's what we have to do in the campaign in Maryland they didn't put they didn't put about the child being taught in school they didn't say your children will be taught they showed a little girl with a book telling that story and we have to be able to counter that argument in Maryland and in Washington with making the same stories and it's going to take I'm sorry that we're at the public campaign over and over and over it's going to take $7 million for us to make that case in the state of Maryland Governor O'Malley spent $14 million so we're only asking for half that's what it's going to take between the Washington media and Baltimore media market and around the rest of the state in order to have our stories up on television to counter that side is there going to have these secret deep pocket people that are just going to write the checks that happen that happen in Maine last time that happen in probably California and if we don't all dig deep or give $10 or whatever in order to make this happen we're going to suffer a similar defeat in Maryland even though the polls show us up right now the polls show us up thanks to President Obama thanks to have been 30 not can't get it off that's what you gotta fly that is a huge swing and as far as I'm concerned the biggest news was now Michelle Obama who I don't think is a better spokesperson for us in Maryland than to have Michelle Obama on television or in a robocall or in a mailing or hopefully for $7 million in all of those things many people know that she and the president support it because having the first lady say I'm not worried about my children that's going to be a very powerful message that the other side won't be able to counter and then for others working nationally I'm just thinking of DC and how lucky we were in DC to have this human it's called the human rights initiative or I forget what the exact words are but states like Maryland or other friendly states out there is it worth thinking a push for that so that this can happen again either for GOPT or anybody else I assume you're talking about the provision in the DC Charter that was used to prevent this issue for being petitioned to recognize human rights so so you'll be having to know that the Maryland state constitution if it's two items from the ballot a budget measure or a measure dealing with the outcome of the measure and I have tried to talk about how same-gender weddings will have a lot of outcomes better than that but unfortunately all of my all of my friends in the legal community say there's tenuous of an argument to try to make because I really keep the HRC legal department busy coming up with different ideas to do just that so yes, are we going to be aggressive at trying to make sure that they didn't fraudulently get the signatures are we going to be aggressive to say you can't hide your contributions like you are funneling and laundering them through NOM the people who paid for the petitioned drug the Maryland Marriage Alliance guess who their biggest donor was Maryland Marriage Alliance I don't quite get how you give yourself a lot of money and that somehow passes leave and muster but we're going to be fighting but unfortunately we don't have that same provision and I don't know if that's ever going to come about in Maryland but if we had started twenty years ago with the thought yes we would have added that to the to our constituency so actually the district in the white sort of things initiatives and referendums in the district that applies only to budget items the council as part of its human rights act had a human rights ordinance that prohibits initiatives and referendums so this is the organic rule charter it was the council addition in the 1970s so that was the subject of Bishop Jackson's first of many assaults on the city by trying to essentially say the council was not to have that and so that decision was the first of many lawsuits was settled in the summer of 2009 and the decision was written by a superior judge Judith Wretchen and I had the privilege of having lunch with Judge Wretchen I had no discussions with her but I had the privilege of being at a party of six two of my best friends got married up to 45 years together actually it was only five but I was there with the men and Judge Wretchen and her partner and it's so fascinating how we had a discussion about how she went to the chief judge about how she would use her zone and she honestly constructed that she should not so you never know how these things fall into place it's interesting as we're seeing more judges come out it's very interesting in some of these cases we're coming back to this but one of the things in the trial that moves people forward there was a discussion about the imperative therapy and only two weeks ago Dr. Robert Spitzer apologized to the gay community at the same time the World Health Organization came out and said that the imperative therapy is dangerous to people and Dr. Spitzer who did the study in 1999 apologized for the new study that people like Marcus Bachman and others have used to make money on the imperative therapy so I think we're moving so quickly in a lot of different areas and the hearts and minds of people are changing but it is a process can I say Bishop Jackson has moved back to Maryland so I don't think he's like standing in the doorway it's quite a picture of it it's a signature so if you follow this issue in the city with Bishop Jackson and the voice there he's now back in Maryland to leave the similarities I think I want to go right back here there's a woman in the very back put her hand up I'll put some, I'm sorry let's see if you can back here right here yeah sorry so how long will it be before this play is available for amateur productions there is so we ended up being contacted by Broadway Impact and the play is available for for amateur productions and is being performed all around I mean performed in various degrees sometimes stage readings like you saw tonight and sometimes warmth pulled productions but it's being licensed by Broadway Impact which is really wonderful totally for free so we are it was just a wonderful opportunity for us to get this out here and have a conversation about all of these issues I can tell you on July 22 at the Annapolis Unitarian Church a community group community group called Dignity Players is going to be doing 8 so it is getting out the only downside is they won't let you use it for a fundraiser or anyone but I think the Americans whatever the group they're from the American Foundation for Equal Rents but it's going to be shown it's going to be talked about all over Maryland and I think it is available on YouTube videos I think the whole thing is going to be available yeah the really smart videos yeah so let's see let's move forward down here absolutely I was struck on the plate tonight I am also worried that I think there's a certain slothiness in mind between we say gay marriage or marriage equality because we're really just talking about marriage in city hall not in churches we should say gay civil marriage or civil marriage equality and that term is almost never used all the way from many articles to everywhere else and I think it lets the religious ride on wild when we don't emphasize our separation of church and state I know it's a lot harder to say these civil marriage or civil marriage equality but I just wondering if any of you have any thoughts because I worry about these 4951 elections or like the 2010 congressional elections and I know it's going to be coming up in this next election they'll try to link the two so I'm wondering if the word civil should be said all the time in these words there's actually been a series of conversations that I won't walk you through about this very matter and so I'm glad you raised it but I mean we over the course of many years have changed how we've talked about marriage we now say marriage sometimes we'll say marriage equality but often we're just saying marriage and Evan Wolfson who's played in the play makes this point frequently which is marriage there's nothing else in this country that is marriage except marriage and I think part of what we have done certainly when we have occasion or need to do so is to say it is a civil marriage this is something that's done by the state in this country and people can choose to do that or not with their religious institutions I think the other thing that we've done to your point of language is that we've really moved over the course of years away from what used to be a very rights-focused language part of what was on these 1300 plus rights and we started talking about these rights which as it turns out opposite sex couples didn't even realize that was an issue because they got married because they loved each other they wouldn't have families here so we've moved significantly to language around really the humanity and the human experience and I loved in fact we kind of go back and forth with this family having a very typical mundane yet meaningful conversation about whether they're going to get takeout or not and so I think the more that we can get to how people experience marriage and love and family the closer we get and the more we resonate people say well of course they should be able to get married it's marriage the bill that we passed is the civil marriage protection act so we try to put in the word civil marriage it used to have the word religious and civil marriage protection act but to try to separate the religious aspect out but in the end what passed was the civil marriage protection act as I try to say to people all the time does everyone want a gay wedding or a gay marriage that's what we all know we only have time for maybe a couple more questions and I want to definitely get to this side of the house as well so let's start over here and then if somebody is going to be back at the house over there as well so we'll start here and then we'll go back to the house over there so I know a lot of you have said on stage right now that you're openly gay and that I don't remember the rest of you coming from I'm 14 and I'm really involved in that much but I was just wondering overall how important do you think it is to just make sure that everybody knows not everybody who's involved in gay rights or just at a very basic level of civil rights isn't necessarily gay or to keep community because there was the violence in the play where he's driving up and so on as his bumper sticker it's about voting yes on her bait and she's like your kind doesn't deserve marriage and things like that and she just automatically assumes that because he supports gay marriage, he's gay and it was the play but not everybody is and I think I think that's a really strong message to send out and I was wondering kind of what was happening to send out that message well I think it's definitely an effort for all the organizations to engage the broader community and support for what we're working on I mean someone mentioned but we HRC for example has been engaging in a video campaign getting prominent folks to speak out about their support for marriage equality almost universally non-LGBT people who are nonetheless supportive of marriage and from a broad range of racial and ethnic backgrounds different professions involvement in the mainstream civil rights community so certainly there's that public education effort and then you've just seen recently the NAACP for instance just ask for resolution and support of marriage equality and not certainly without lobbying from LGBT groups not just sort of spontaneously I don't want to get on board with that but a conscientious effort by organizations local and local to engage allies of all kinds and make sure that you're absolutely right that this is communicated as a message of support across the board for marriage equality but it's not just an LGBT issue and that the support for this is not confined to just the community that's going to directly impact I think it's safe to say that some of the incredible watershed moments in this debate occurred when straight allies have come out in support of marriage equality I mean the fact that when Ted Olson and David Boyd joined forces that was an unbelievable man by dog moment in this debate and I think you've numbered again a change over and over and over because Ted Olson was identified as this Republican lawyer who already was supposed to be born here he is arguing for this debate case and obviously when President Obama announced this support and you know you look at the HRC campaign I mean the most compelling videos are you know when you have like Sean Aver you know professional hockey player professional basketball player you know people you wouldn't expect and when they stand up and say you know they support our community I mean that has an incredibly powerful you know you will see videos just like in New York you will see videos from a range of people from the star defensive lineman from the Baltimore Ravens did a video Monique the actress did a video Governor O'Malley did a video the head of the Maryland AFL CIO is an African American man has a new video up with his openly gay son talking about all of his children and his love for all of his children it's a very powerful video but we're trying to do the same thing and if any of you are really close with Cal Ripken I can kill you I think that would be really helpful so those things do move individuals and we're doing that in Maryland and if you if you went to the website and then shared those videos a lot of people saw them in New York but to share those same videos because HRC has been very generous in helping us do that same sort of campaign but we've got to get the word out throughout the region and throughout the country and if you're on Facebook someone was moving videos of the ones of the children of gay couples who were speaking out the young men just wrote the book Zekwals and others I mean you can't help if you moved when you hear that and one of the most interesting things is the quality of saying it's terrible for the children where the recognition is this is changing generationally and when enough older people die off people are going to look back and say oh my god what was all this about and it's generational and you're not protecting children from this you're educating children and I think if we figure out how to do that and how to bring that out there we have to be very careful to make sure that straight individuals and diversity of individuals testified in the council went out and talked to people but I think we're seeing that happen and I think it's crucial that we bring more and more young people out in Maryland to use all the universities that are there bring those young people out and talk to people that's going to make a difference great so let's take Thank you. I think my question has been answered in part but maybe there's more to say I was really struck by the 20-point love and African-American support I'm an ally I'm an African-American and that just really makes me feel great I hope that that will continue and I was wondering if you've noticed other trends or shifts along other demographic lines and how if and how that affects your advocacy work some of what we have talked about but I mean certainly and I think that 20% I haven't kind of looked underneath it to see what all the factors are I think that people of a variety of races and ethnicities after the president and after NWCP came out in support were in some ways kind of given permission to be public about something they already believed and another said oh well he's finally back so I think we need to learn more about that younger demographic shift is my position though that we should not wait and just wait for what some call the attrition strategy because we don't need to wait that long and we shouldn't this should not be our children's fight and I do think there are other Latino women in some circumstances have been areas of work higher than other demographics so we're seeing it in different areas when we looked back at Prop 8 as a matter of fact we you know unfortunately immediately there was a lot of blame going on about who lost the election and it was horrible but came out immediately based on no data whatsoever about African American voters what that was really about Prop 8 was a high religiosity across a variety of voters and I've had to work to actually dispel some of the myths that got perpetuating through Prop 8 and some of the other campaigns that happened that year so I think we're going to continue to see this it'll be interesting as we head into the fall and we've got the like before ballot measures that are very different from each other in some ways we've got Maryland and Washington likely defending marriage that already exists we've got Maine historically proactively putting the ballot measure forward and then defending fighting off an attack on Minnesota I think we're going to learn a lot about people of faith we are running actually and have done a lot of the groundwork in Maryland around people of faith progressive people of faith and in Minnesota where we are doing a very intentional grassroots organizing campaign for progressive people of faith that is something that we have not been able to do in many of the campaigns before and we're going to learn a lot about it and how that shifts Can I say in Maryland the subgroups that African American numbers from before the president's announcement and after the president's announcement we just happen to have a poll hit two days after the president made his announcement and it was a 20 point swing in the African American community down 39 56 to being up 56 39 and that moved to the overall numbers in Maryland from 52 to 57 in support so it's a huge shift if you just look at the vote in North Carolina the five largest cities in North Carolina that are majority African American all voted against the constitutional amendments in North Carolina what you were saying is absolutely the case it's a urban rural divide and we're fortunate in Maryland you all know Maryland it is a highly urban state about 80% more of the population live in the two metro areas so it's a very different vote than you've had in many other states because of the highly concentrated nature of national politics and I would like to say that you did a sophisticated area of the state of Maryland I like Virginia I think it's important to approach these like and so one of the things we were able to do in the district in part with HXC support was to actually pull and advance so we would know where we're still within various populations so religiosity is a big deal the more like we are to be Baptist the more like we are to be against the more like we are the more observant you are as a Baptist the more like we are to be against and then education so it's religiosity, it's religion and it's education so for instance in our bully we found that college educated were above African Americans were in supportive marriage the quality of those who were not were not were below Caucasians in the district you know Peter's group did a fantastic job of getting the religious community out in front of us so we actually had about 200 members of faith so we had more members of faith and religiously we were testifying supportive marriage quality than against but here's why I think it's so important depending on you know this is why I answered your question why is it important to have non-LGBTQ members sometimes you know we have to be there it was discussion to be used as lines to be used in the community of times to be around the table in the wrong opinion so it was it was critically important to me when I was traveling with the Archdiocese that I knew the numbers as a related Catholics I knew that Catholics were the most pro-quality Christian denomination in the district and that non-observing Catholics were off the charts in favor of marriage quality so when the chance the Archdiocese came and tried to do a soprano moment on me and basically say you know we've been rather measured you have not seen us take some of the stands that for instance the Baptist ministers have taken and I responded I said I'm assuming you've seen the same polling I have and if you do it you'll have riots then you'll be accused so don't threaten me you have to know where you stand and you have to when you know there are areas and groups that you are in trouble with you have to find the people who can speak to that crowd if you can give Michelle a comment I can do a piece apparently the election is over I don't know if possibly not but you can hold that legit you guys will find and you're going to see the Catholic Church in fact is going to be doing they're a national restore the faith restore our freedom and a national event that starts in Baltimore with a sermon in Baltimore and ends with a sermon in Washington to feature the Archbishop of Baltimore and the Archbishop of Washington talking about how contraception and marriage and all these things are an attack on the Catholic faith and so they're going to put a lot of effort in the Maryland even though the polling numbers show just like in the district Catholics are very strongly of marriage equality so there's a great quote from someone from a minister recently in Maryland who said the clergy just like they often talk about the stock market is a lagging indicator of the economy clergy or a lagging indicator of what's happening in the communities and I think you see in a lot of places this is changing and the clergy are starting to understand that the clock is in a very different position last question Brian Dunn here Thanks I want to thank you all for giving us your wisdom and your thoughts and your experience and great props to William for putting on this reading now I want to address as quickly as I can 50,000 thoughts running through my head but it strikes me that a number of you on the panel were saying that it's very important for people to hear the personal which is what this stage reading gave us and what the play itself if it were fully staged it would certainly do and I'm thinking how important it was in the past for ages in America to change people's ideas about AIDS and about people who are living as closeted gays and difficulty coming out or not coming out and then of course Laramie again personalizing the situation so it's not just a news item or legalism and I think the fact that this play when it was announced by William sold out within about 3-4 hours I was too late and I got in only by the grace of the box office which gave me a ticket that somebody else couldn't use and I wanted to ask the senator Mattalino will this be produced in Maryland this play I follow all the discussion about prop 8 but this play gave me information that I was not aware of and in particular the testimony of people who were living the life and who were able to speak with an authority that struck to the heart when legal arguments alone couldn't carry that force so I challenge everybody on the stage get this play out I challenge William to consider doing a fully staged version of this maybe next year or the year after because even if prop 8 is decided in the way we all want it to be there will be other fights going on in all the states and the only way that the opposition is able to mount their effective stories to try to suppress the knowledge of what is going on to suppress the personal stories so I ask you specifically will this be done in Maryland and if not I would urge you to consider whatever you could to help that happen July 22nd, there can be players at the Annapolis Unitarian this will be put on I'd be great if John would reach out to the ground house or center stage or one of the multiple Baltimore to do it Minnesota, there's a very interesting group in Minnesota called Minnesota Artists for Equality which has come together to fight the Constitutional Amendment and people right now are trying to create Maryland Artists for Equality because this is all about artists donating not just their name but their time, their talent to help get the message out recognizing that there are so many people out there who can help in producing videos to put out who can help with productions who can help with art and try to make it happen so I think those things are to happen across the state and unlike some others you can share all the stories we can all go home tonight and look up that ending, that closing argument from Ted Olson and put that clip on your Facebook page or tweet it and let people know that it's out there and experience that culminating moment and that is wonderful but I'll say nothing beats the shared experience of being in Equality, hearing the people and thanks to Woolly I just want to thank several people really quickly before we get out of here. Again, I just want to thank Gibson Diamond and Pressure for supporting tonight and making tonight possible. Broadly impact of course our director Alan Hall over at Shakespeare did such a wonderful job with the reading itself and a wonderful cast of 22 plus amazing actors from all over DC who gave us their time today to put this on and of course all of our panelists for everything that they have contributed tonight in sort of educating us so thank you all and thank you everybody who helped make tonight possible and thank you for joining us John, do you mind if I take a moment to plug the lonely planets? Sure Thanks so much I just wanted to take an opportunity to talk to this hyper-targeted audience of the supporters because we are doing a show called Lonely Planets with two Woolly Company members myself and Michael Rosado and directed by John Brieke who is another Woolly Company member so this is also an appropriate audience for that reason and it's a play that's set in the backdrop of the 1980s age crisis and it's a beautiful story about friendship really but many of the themes from tonight's show and from tonight's discussion are echoed in the play in the razor-sharp and poignant dialogue of Stephen Dietz and I would love to encourage everyone to come check us out we've had a hard time getting people out to metro stage in Alexandria but like we were talking about I know David was mentioning the power of the theater to sort of change minds and just continue the conversation and we've had like David's six people in the house so anybody you could tell about the show or if you could come yourself we would really love to have you again it's called Lonely Planets and it's at metro stage you can just visit metrostage.org for more info and I can say I saw it and I'm not a plant and that man was great and Michael was great and it's an extraordinary play and it's a whole lot of fun