Our Partner's Story - The ACLU-NC and Let California Ring Campaign

Can we count on you? All you need to do is say, "I support the freedom to marry!"

The Freedom to Marry
We hosted a “Freedom to Marry Kick-Off” cocktail party on July 25 in our offices on Drumm Street to introduce the Let California Ring campaign. We presented groundbreaking research and new ways to open hearts and minds about marriage equality. The event raised more than $2,000 and recruited 13 house party hosts plus four new volunteers for the campaign.

Several ACLU-NC staff and activist events have followed since the Kick-Off party, prompting hundreds of conversations about the freedom to marry throughout Northern California:

• Emily Lehr-Anning, a UC Santa Cruz student, ACLU-NC North Peninsula Chapter intern and Sunday school teacher, hosted a house party with 40 guests after Sunday church services at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Redwood City. The event, covered by the San Francisco Chronicle, raised $2,294 and three guests pledged to have “100 conversations” about the freedom to marry. “It was a great success, and I’m looking forward to the future house parties of my volunteer party hosts,” says Emily, who signed up six of them.
  
  
• Shayna Gelender, an Organizer with the ACLU-NC, hosted 20 people at her house party in Alameda, raising $800, and signing on one new campaign volunteer and two new house party hosts.
  
  
• Alicia Walters, also an ACLU-NC Organizer, hosted seven guests at her house party in Oakland, raising $100, and recruiting two new house party hosts and one volunteer. 
  
  
• Organizing Fellow Ashley Morris hosted 11 people at her house party in Oakland and raised $250.  She also spoke on behalf of the Let California Ring Campaign at a friend’s house party in Berkeley, which raised over $200 and recruited new house party hosts and volunteers.
  
  
• Shana Heller, Development & Membership Assistant with the ACLU-NC, had a “Mimosas for Marriage Equality” party at her place in San Francisco on November 3, where about 30 people showed up. Friends and family friends, old and new, young and young at heart, all came, brought delicious food, schmoozed and talked about marriage equality.  Liam, an organizer with Equality California, and Shayna Gelender facilitated the program and the conversation.  “They were able to get the folks in the room, many of whom didn’t know each other, talking,” says the host.
  
  What inspired Shana to host a party? “There are many people in my life who will not have the chance to marry as long as people of the same sex are not allowed to (marry) under the law,” she explains. “In February of 2004, my mom ‘took the plunge’ and married her partner of the time, when mayor Gavin Newsom allowed same-sex marriages in San Francisco.  Intellectually, I was thrilled for them; who wouldn’t be? But emotionally, I was completely frustrated because neither my brother nor I were able to be there to witness it. If same-sex marriages were always legal, there would have been planning, a date set, and we would of course have been able to be there.”
  
  Shana’s party raised more than $1,000, and four people signed up to host their own house parties. She is more engaged now than ever before. What she took away from it: “My friends really inspire me; people are ready to give and get involved, we just have to ask them; and lots of orange juice and delicious carrot cake!”
  
  
• The ACLU-NC Yolo County Chapter hosted a community event at The Next Chapter bookstore in Woodland and also recruited UC Davis law school students to host a future event on campus. “We had really good conversation that dealt with the variety of issues around same-sex marriage. A local couple who got married in San Francisco in 2004 shared their story about being married and now being unmarried,” said chapter chair Natalie Wormeli. 
  
  
• The ACLU-NC Mt. Diablo Chapter is planning to co-sponsor an event soon.
  
  
• We sent an action alert for AB 43, Assemblyman Mark Leno’s marriage equality bill, in August and a Let California Ring action alert in October to over 6,000 online activists and members in Northern California. We also joined several rallies held across the state in support of the freedom to marry, shortly after the Governor vowed to veto AB 43.