By Sarah Mieras
KALAMAZOO – It began as a frustrated E-mail to a few friends. In a week it blossomed into a protest of more than 100 people along one of Kalamazoo's busiest downtown thoroughfares.
On Friday, February 27, toting picket signs and waving rainbow flags, members of the gay and lesbian community in Kalamazoo responded to the national debate over gay and lesbian marriage rights.
The rally's organizer, Leise Grimmer, decided to stage the event after she was barred from registering for a marriage conference hosted by the right-wing group Family Life.
"The conference was for married couples or fiancŽs, it's like a weekend retreat for people to work on their relationships. I heard it advertised on a Christian Radio Station and decided to see what would happen if I registered as a same sex couple," said Grimmer.
Grimmer was surprised though when she was told a same sex couple wouldn't be welcome at the conference because it was only for "Christians."
"It was as if they couldn't understand that someone could be gay and Christian," said Grimmer.
A week after her rejection, Grimmer stood alongside more than 100 people from throughout the Kalamazoo area, across the street from the Family Life conference. The crowd, which was a mix of college students and community members filled an entire block with rainbow signs as rush hour traffic crawled past the corner of Michigan and Rose in the heart of Kalamazoo's downtown.
The rally, noted Grimmer, would send a message throughout the city that the marriage debate isn't just an issue in San Francisco or Massachusetts or Washington, it is also an issue in Southwest Michigan.
"I think it is really easy to watch the news and see people in big cities doing things, but it really makes an impact to see people in your own city. It makes you realize that the issues are here," said Grimmer. "By doing this we can also bring awareness to what is happening in our own state legislature. There are a lot of queer people in Michigan who don't even know about the amendment."
Looking at the size of the crowd, Executive Director of the Kalamazoo Resource Center, Sharon Roepke, noted that for most of the protesters, the Family Life conference was secondary to the ongoing national debate over amending the Constitution.
"I think a lot of this is pent up frustration over what we have had to listen to in the media, from our President and our Legislators in recent weeks," said Roepke. "We are talking about a drastically radical thing, to amend the Constitution to exclude a group of people."
The move to amend Michigan's Constitution, which passed a House sub-committee last week, is especially troubling to Roepke.
"The thing we are so concerned about in Michigan is that the way the amendment is written it will deny domestic partner benefits and civil unions," she said.
Standing in the protest line, Nate Triplett, who testified during the House sub-committee hearings last week at the Capitol, called the debate in Michigan a "charade."
"The hearing was only an hour long," said Triplett. "I spend more than an hour deciding what to eat for breakfast."
Others at the Kalamazoo rally, like Phil Kotzan the president of Kalamazoo College's Kaleidoscope group, view the marriage debate as the hallmark of a new civil rights movement.
"This issue has become college-aged student's new civil rights issue," he said.
Straight allies, like Matt Carpenter, also turned out in force for the rally because they believe standing up for gays and lesbians is crucial in the continued fight against bigotry. "I am here because hatred turns my stomach. Anytime someone says they are more human than someone else it bothers me."
Still fresh in Carpenter's mind was Proposition A, which was defeated by city voters in 2001. The right-wing backed measure would have blocked Kalamazoo from ever recognizing LGBT people for civil rights protections.
"With a voter turnout of 12,000 people it was only defeated by 100 votes," said Carpenter, "and that still really concerns me."
