Peace Corps News

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Gay Marriage

Togo RPCV Evan Wolfson is married to the cause of Gay Marriage
Evan Wolfson spent two years with the Peace Corps in Togo in West Africa, and had his first gay relationship. After law school, he was recruited by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, then run by Elizabeth Holtzman. He worked as a prosecutor from 1983 to 1988 (and wrote amicus briefs arguing for a ban on racial discrimination in jury selection and the abolition of the marital rape exemption) and, with Ms. Holtzman’s blessing, moonlighted free at Lambda from 1984 to 1988. Which meant he had to “come out” professionally.

In 2004, he wrote a book, “Why Marriage Matters,” in an attempt to generate dialogue with (mainly) heterosexual Americans who don’t realize that civil unions are a parallel alternative, not on an equal footing with marriage. “One state down, 49 to go,” Mr. Wolfson says of Freedom to Marry’s success rate. “Gay marriage is not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the legal right for gays to marry. You don’t ask for half a loaf. We don’t need two lines at the clerk’s office when there’s already an institution that works in this country, and it’s called marriage. One of the main protections that come with marriage is inherent in the word: certainly in times of crisis any other word than marriage would not bring the same clarity or impart the same dignity.”

“The classic pattern for civil rights advancement in America is patchwork,” he says, “but I see equal marriage rights for gays becoming a nationwide reality over the next 15 to 20 years. I really believe it will happen in my lifetime.” Read more.

Cameroon RPCV Margaret Krome writes: Gay marriage proposals carry the message of hate
Several years ago we had a sign in our front yard in support of gay rights. A young visitor from elsewhere in the state came and whispered his amazement to my then-young son. "Do you know what it means? It means homos!" Yes, my son knew, and was startled that our visitor voiced such repugnance.

But almost no gay man or woman I've ever known would be surprised. Such cultural hostility is simultaneously the cause, result and direct purpose of the anti-gay rights amendments at both the national and state levels.

Are gays a legitimate enemy? Well, the right says it loves them despite their sin, but it seems that because they are "fallen," their claims to even the most basic human relationships aren't justified. Conservative hate-mongers challenge the common figure that 10 percent of the population is gay, as if by making the number smaller, they can attack them more freely. Yet many families I know have a brother, aunt, cousin, uncle or even a parent who's gay. Several of our children's friends have gay parents. Are we the enemy to ourselves? Why would we support a law that would make it harder for these people, no less law-abiding than others in the state, to be deprived of health insurance, medical care, retirement benefits, legal protection and all of the other benefits conferred by marriage?

Numerous commentators, including Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold, have criticized President Bush for advancing an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment as strictly a divisive tactic to galvanize conservative voters prior to the 2006 fall elections. It's particularly blatant this time, since the amendment stands no chance at all of passing the Senate. Politicians, especially those with low popularity, have a long history of advancing measures based on the sure social calculus that setting up a clear enemy rallies the troops. Anti-communist rhetoric, complaints about trading partners, patriotic calls to arms, and mean-spirited attacks on vulnerable targets get louder before a national election. Read more.

Guatemala RPCVs Lara Weiss and Nora Wynne — accompanied by their 3-year-old twin daughters —turned down for marriage license
“In accordance with the laws of the state of California, a marriage license can only be issued to an unmarried man and an unmarried woman,” said Vicki Cushman, supervisor of vital records. “Until the law is changed, we are bound to uphold that law and can only issue a marriage license to an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. “If you would like the law changed, you need to contact your government officials at both the state and national levels.” Cushman then handed the couple three pages, neatly stapled together, that contained Cushman’s speech and contact information for several politicians — from President George W. Bush to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to Assemblymember Patty Berg.

Wednesday marked the fifth year demonstrators congregated outside the Humboldt County Courthouse, as multiple same-sex couples rode the courthouse elevator to the fifth floor to apply for marriage licenses.

Nora Wynne said she and Lara Weiss met in Guatemala in 1995 while in the Peace Corps. After a year, their friendship blossomed into something more. The two married in San Francisco in 2004 after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Although Wynne said she is aware that until laws change, her marriage to Weiss is not legally valid, events such as Wednesday’s are just one of many steps to marriage equality. “We know that when people realize it’s not a religious issue, but a civil rights issue, and they change the laws accordingly,” Wynne said. “These are all just steps toward the goal.” Read more.

Caption: Friends Abigail Frankel, left, and Abigail Hastings-Tharp, right, both 4 1/2 years old, stand on the Humboldt County Courthouse steps in the rain, Wednesday afternoon, while couples of the same sex apply for civil marriage licenses. Photo: Katie O’Neill/The Eureka Reporter

Read more about Gay Issues and the Peace Corps.

Martin Luther King: Letter from the Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.