Tony Marconi
supported gay rights long before his ex-wife came out as a
lesbian...and long before he ran for Ohio State
representative. But Bush's 2004 win, plus that year's
constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage in
Ohio, made Marconi and his wife, Martha Filipic, LGBT
rights advocates for life.
They met on the
campaign trail in 1998.
Tony Marconi was
running for Ohio State representative for the second
house district, which includes all of the Buckeye
State’s Delaware County. Martha Filipic, a
journalist by training, was a prospective voter.
Things between them just clicked. Wedding bells came in
2000.
Tony had been
married before. After 19 years his ex-wife came out as a
lesbian. They'd had two kids together. “I felt a
sense of relief and a sense of joy for her,” he
said as a way of explaining how he and Martha have
become two of the staunchest straight allies the
LGBT community could ask for.
“I’d been very pro on these issues prior to
her coming-out,” said Marconi. “It was
just a matter of right and wrong. LGBT rights is the
last great civil rights issue facing us.”
When Marconi ran
for office, he knew it was an extremely uphill battle,
so he took the opportunity to speak out on LGBT issues as
part of his platform. He didn’t win. But he did
change the way local Democrats viewed the issues.
“Someone had to stand up. Now the Democrats
acknowledge LGBT issues.”
So much so that
at Equality Ohio's Lobby Day for Equality this year,
Democratic governor Ted Strickland’s public liaison
was met with thunderous applause when he told the
crowd that the governor would be signing an
executive order banning discrimination against LGBT people
in state government.
However,
Ohio’s 2004 constitutional amendment, which not only
banned same-sex marriage but also legal
relationships that "approximate" marriage (like
domestic partnerships), “made us the most
repressive state,” said Marconi, who is on Equality
Ohio’s board of directors. After living through
that year’s exhausting election cycle -- the
Bush reelection and the passage of the amendment -- they
decided that LGBT issues would be the main focus of their
political work. “Knowing who we knew -- all the
gays and lesbians in our lives -- this would be what
we would put our energy toward.”
Their main focus
is the Delaware Gay Straight Christian Alliance.
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