BACKGROUND
The legal contract of marriage and the religious ceremony are completely separate issues under American Law. “Baehr vs. Lewin” is a landmark case currently underway in Hawaii which clarifies the State’s role in the issuance of marriage licenses. If won, Gays and Lesbians will be awarded the full rights and privileges of American citizenship, and their marriages will be legally recognized.

Though the last State to decriminalize interracial marriages did so in 1969, same-gender marriages are still not legally recognized anywhere in the United States. Just as interracial couples cannot change the fact that they have two different skin colors, same-gender couples cannot change the fact that they are both women or both men.

The civil right to marriage is one of the most basic privileges of citizenship. When Americans are denied the right to marry they are being told whom they may and may not call “family.” Though marriage has traditionally been defined as a union between a man and a woman, at different times it has also been defined as unions between people of the same race, the same religion, or in which wives were the property of their husbands. Today, we realize that the choice of a marriage partner belongs to each man or woman, not to the State.

Larry Ingalls, Seminar Leader
Larry has been a public speaker and trainer for 8 years, delivering seminars on a diverse range of topics including banking practices and regulations, computer and business training, and American civil rights.

He co-facilitates Outspoken, a program designed to develop spokespersons for the speakers bureau of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD, a media relations group).

Location: Based in Los Angeles, California
Cost: FREE FREE FREE
Duration: 20 - 60 minutes, depending on the needs of the audience

PROGRAM SUMMARY
This program is a presentation that can be offered at any event incorporating a guest speaker. It is designed to inform non-Gay or Lesbian people, in a friendly manner, about the struggle to win the Freedom to Marry. The legal battle currently being waged in Hawaii is discussed, as well as what the case means to citizens living outside Hawaii. The main theme of the program is to illustrate what it’s like being in a marriage that is not legally recognized. The audience is asked “What would happen if YOUR marriage were legally reduced to the status of ‘friendship’ or ‘roommate’?” and then a few of the many, many legal benefits same-gender couples aredenied are highlighted, including:

• Filing joint tax returns
• Obtaining joint insurance policies for home, auto and health
• Inheriting automatically in the absence of a will through the right of survivorship
• Obtaining such benefits as annuities, pension plans, Social Security and Medicare
• Taking bereavement leave from work when a partner dies
• Determining whether a deceased partner will be cremated or buried
• Obtaining divorce protections such as community property
• Obtaining status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent