Supporters of gay marriage take their stories on the road

As the U.S. House of Representatives failed Thursday to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, gay rights advocates in California prepared for a seven-day, cross-country trip they hope will remind Americans that same-sex couples still have no access to hundreds of federal and state rights afforded married couples. The House vote was 227-186, 63 votes shy of the two thirds majority needed for approval of an amendment. But organizers of the coast-to-coast caravan said they worry that election-year rhetoric, along with gains made in states like Massachusetts, has caused voters to become either complacent or misinformed on the issue. "It feels like we are in this time when we are watching the civil liberties of gay people being eroded right and left and nobody is really up in arms about it," said Davina Kotulski of Marriage Equality California, the event's main sponsor. "People do not truly understand what's at stake here." A retired Army staff sergeant who plans to publicly challenge the military's ban on gay service, a couple married for 40 years who have a lesbian daughter, and more than a dozen couples who got married in San Francisco this year are among those participating in the National Marriage Equality Express. The group plans to leave Oakland on Monday morning, making stops in Sacramento; Reno, Nev.; Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyo.; Denver; St. Louis; Indianapolis; Columbus and Akron, Ohio; and Pittsburgh before arriving in Washington, D.C., for a rally near the U.S. Capitol on October 11--National Coming Out Day. The itinerary takes them through Missouri, where voters already amended their constitution to ban gay marriage, and through Ohio, where a similar amendment will appear on the November 2 ballot. Kotulski said she expects a crowd of about 10,000 people to take part in the Washington rally, where Chrissy Gephardt, the lesbian daughter of former presidential candidate Dick Gephardt, is one of the scheduled speakers. Cheryl Jacques, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, said she isn't worried that the deliberately high-profile tour could arouse antigay sentiment just before the presidential election, with Ohio and 10 other states considering amendments to ban same-sex marriage. "I'm of the school of thought that everything adds value--every group, every spokesperson, every initiative," Jacques said. "People are obviously very fired up that here in the 11th hour of the congressional session when many spending initiatives haven't been dealt with, some members of Congress are spending an exorbitant amount of time trying to enshrine discrimination into the Constitution, an issue that is already dead on arrival." In each of the host cities, local gay rights groups have organized educational forums and other events to draw attention to the 1,138 federal rights and hundreds of state-sanctioned benefits afforded married couples that same-sex partners can't access. The participants plan to share personal stories that illustrate the situation, including a widow who nearly lost her home to estate taxes when her partner of 21 years died of breast cancer and binational couples who fear they will be forced apart because their relationships aren't recognized for immigration purposes.