LGBT activists visted several offices of Sen. Bob Casey last week to urge the legislator, via his staff members, to support the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
More than 4,000 Pennsylvanians — with about half signing a petition and half penning their names on a handwritten card — urged Casey to cosponsor the Respect for Marriage Act.
The measure, spearheaded by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would lift DOMA, which was put in place in 1996 and defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. Feinstein’s bill currently has 30 cosponsors.
Casey’s office did not return a call for comment.
A coalition of representatives from Equality Pennsylvania, Freedom to Marry and the Courage Campaign delivered a petition with 2,000 signatories urging Casey to cosponsor the repeal bill.
Equality PA executive director Ted Martin, who delivered the petition along with a married same-sex couple from York to Casey’s Harrisburg office Nov. 2, said Casey’s staff was open to discussing the bill and the senator was considering the issue.
The three organizations collected the 2,000 signatures through an online campaign this fall, and a representative of Freedom to Marry also submitted the petition to Casey’s Washington, D.C., office.
“Fair-minded citizens across the state of Pennsylvania have spoken out and asked Sen. Casey to support the repeal of the discriminatory so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” said Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry. “Gay and lesbian couples and their families are harmed every day by a lack of access to marriage and by a law that does not acknowledge their love and devotion to one another.”
In addition to the coalition’s petition, leaders of the Pennsylvania Diversity Network also delivered about 2,100 hand-signed cards calling for Casey to support the repeal last week at his Allentown office.
PDN executive director Liz Bradbury noted that Casey has had a perfect voting record on LGBT issues in the past year, and she’s hopeful the effort will illuminate the need for his additional support.
“Most of these cards came from people who live in rural areas,” Bradbury said. “A lot of people believe that support for pro-LGBT issues only comes from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but we have cards from places like Schencksville, Forty Fort and throughout Luzerne, Schuylkill, Carbon and Berks counties — places that are typically considered to be conservative. Sen. Casey’s a good guy so we’re really hoping he’ll follow the lead of [Maryland Sen.] Barbara Mikulski [who recently signed on as a cosponsor] and come out as a cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act.”
Along with the cards, PDN delivered contact information for the card-signers, so Casey can get in touch with them to learn more about the real-life impact of DOMA.
Martin said that personal interaction will be integral to securing support for the bill.
“His staff encouraged us to keep talking about this and I would encourage people interested in this issue to bring this up to Sen. Casey,” Martin said. “If he’s coming to your area for a visit, go up to him and talk to him. He needs to hear directly and sincerely from people who are being affected.”
The coalition provided Casey this opportunity by delivering some of the comments from petition signers — who represent all corners of the state and all backgrounds.
Signatories range from a campaign supporter from Pittsburgh who said he and his wife wanted him to do “the right thing here, not the Republican thing” to a lesbian from Bethlehem who’s been with her partner for 11 years to a 62-year-old heterosexual woman from Aliquippa who’s been married for 32 years and who said she believes in “equal rights for all Americans.”
A woman from New Britain told the senator she drove from New York to Pennsylvania on Election Day in 2006 so she could vote for Casey. Her son and his partner live in the Empire State and are planning to get married next year.
“It is time for their marriage to be recognized by the country in which they live,” she wrote. “It is time that in a country where one or both of them can openly serve in the U.S. military and risk death for their country, that they have all the rights bestowed on other citizens with the right to marry whomever they love. It is time for Sen. Casey to cosponsor the bill to repeal DOMA and live up to the kind of man I drove six hours to help elect as my senator.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].