ACT OUT campaigns for Right to Marry in Hudson Valley

Elysia Glover Staff Writer

Following their March 7 protest in Washington, D.C. against the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) organization ACT OUT is teaming up with social justice organization Soulforce Q to tackle the next target issue of the semester: gender neutral marriage rights.

The Right To Marry campaign for equal gay and lesbian marriage rights is a continuation of the 2007 campaign across the state of New York for gender-neutral marriage laws. Building on last year’s more general approach of hosting a number of potluck dinners and public event appearances to spread awareness of the campaign, this year volunteers will be targeting local business owners directly in hopes of sparking in-depth dialogue on an issue that is too commonly misunderstood.

ACT OUT and Soulforce Q Approximately 50 local businesses have identified as potential partners in the campaign. Volunteers will contact these businesses over the next few weeks to schedule group discussion sessions and pledge potential support for gender-neutral marriage laws.

The collaboration between ACT OUT and Soulforce Q is an exciting step toward communicating with the wider off-campus community. Soulforce Q is the young adult division of the social justice organization Soulforce.

“We are really fortunate to be working closely with Soulforce Q,” said ACT OUT president Julia Golomb ’08 of the collaboration. “This is an opportunity for activism and direct involvement and dialogue with the local community. We have a real, legitimate national organization backing us. Their executive director is working full time, around the clock, to make this campaign amazing.”

With ACT OUT playing the central role in organizing the Poughkeepsie portion of the campaign, Golomb hopes to build bridges between the communities on and off campus.

“This is our opportunity to be leaders and to make amazing, positive and justice-affirming waves in Poughkeepsie and the Hudson Valley,” she said.

The list of targeted businesses includes not only those in the Arlington business district, but throughout Poughkeepsie and the Hudson River Valley as well. ACT OUT is currently trying to persuade representatives from Marist College, Bard College, the Culinary Institute of America and State University of New York at New Paltz to enlist their own local businesses and communities.

Other organizations, such as the Poughkeepsie Farm Project (PFP), have not formally lent their support to the campaign, but have spoken with ACT OUT about joining the movement.

In an e-mailed statement, PFP representative Wendy Burkhart-Spiegel said, “I think that support for gay marriage is consistent with the values of the PFP but the PFP doesn’t tend to make pronouncements on non food related issues (the issues of working toward justice and sustainability of our food systems taking all our time and then some).” Burkhart-Spiegel said that PFP’s board would discuss the issue and come to a decision at a later date.

The goal of the Right To Marry campaign, however, is not to convert those who may oppose the campaign’s views on marriage equality. Instead, ACT OUT and Soulforce Q are hoping to use feedback from their discussions with local business owners as an indicator of the greater community’s readiness to politically tackle gay and lesbian marriage rights.

“If the community is not ready, then we cannot push our agenda, as that is not an effective way of creating change,” Golomb explained. However, if the response is positive, campaign leaders will present pledges of support to the region’s Chambers of Commerce, mayors, politicians and other policy-makers as evidence that the Hudson Valley community is ready for a change to New York State marriage laws.

“There are 1,324 rights made accessible by marriage, and these are rights not allowed to gay and lesbian couples,” explained Golomb. “If the community is ready for this we can go with this momentum and show politicians and other policy-makers that this community is ready for a change to these laws.”

ACT OUT and Soulforce Q have taken steps to ensure that volunteers will not go into the scheduled dialogues unprepared. In order to prime volunteers to effectively engage in what Golomb expects will be an at times intense dialogue on the issue of gay and lesbian marriage rights, the organizations will host on-and off-campus training sessions for campaign members. Training sessions will take place at Vassar on Friday, March 28, and at the Christ Episcopal Church March 29-30.

The sessions will cover topics such as homosexuality and the Bible, nonviolent action and campaign content training. The goal is to provide volunteers with the tools they will need to tackle the biblical, political and social arguments against gender-neutral marriage rights and to provide discussion leaders with the skills they will need to engage in constructive and nonviolent dialogue when they meet with business owners from the greater community.

Acknowledging the potential challenge presented by more conservative members of the community, Golomb stressed the importance of creating dialogue as a tool to build community support. “Some businesses will need convincing, and we’ll be prepared to engage in these dialogues. It’s about starting a conversations and garnering community support.”

Campaign leaders hope that by targeting the discussion at local business owners, they will gain greater insight into the attitude of the area on social issues.

The campaign has already received its first pledge of support from the community. The Half Moon Theatre, a nonprofit professional theater company in the Hudson Valley, signed on to the Right to Marry Campaign on March 17. Lathrop House Fellow Margo Whitcomb is one of the Half Moon’s directors.

“It comes down to this: We believe in businesses that are the sum total of the people who create them, and we hope those people, and thus those businesses, support what we mean to this community too,” said Whitcomb.

There is always a danger in aligning one’s business with a cause that one’s customers may not agree with, Whitcomb said in an e-mailed statement. However, she sees the traditionally conservative demographic as changing to allow for new ideas.

“Education is key to illuminating most controversies in my opinion,” Whitcomb said. “Vassar is greatly situated to offer such educational forums on this issue within our own community and the greater Poughkeepsie area. Half Moon theatre stands for these same values: inclusion and expanded thinking.”