These LGBTQ+ married couples aren’t afraid to show their love

As conservatives push to overturn marriage equality, LGBTQ+ couples are uniting to show that their love is stronger.

A new campaign from GLAAD aims to spotlight queer married couples, asking for submissions from those whose lives have been made better by having the legal right to marry. GLAAD I Found You uplifts "married queer couples finding each other and celebrating joy, the same as any other couple who decides to make this life-changing commitment."

"Like any good love story, some have meet-cutes, some have meet-laters. Some overcome incredible odds to be together. Some felt a spark that still burns decades later," Darian Aaron, GLAAD Senior Director of News, U.S. South, told The Advocate. "In the 11th year since marriage equality was legalized, we are still discovering that love is love, that all couples who marry want the same thing - to be a family, to be there for each other. Accurate LGBTQ storytelling demystifies and humanizes everything, including our marriages and relationships, bridging any divides others try to build."

One of the couples featured is Brandon Davis and Davie Roberts, two business owners from Asheville, North Carolina whose cafe and bar was destroyed by Hurricane Helene just 31 days after it opened. The couple wasn't expecting to go viral, but the donations came pouring in, and the two were able to open a new space twice as big just four months later.

“GLAAD has always been a source of guidance for me when I've felt lost,” Davis says. “They represent love, grace and humanity. This organization has always spotlighted those who are doing the work to create queer community and I am highly honored our bar DayTrip has been noticed by them.”

Another couple featured is the TikTok "Rainbow Aunties" Marilyn Johnson Jordan and Wilma J. Scales, both 61, who have been together since they were 20. Jordan left her husband to follow Scales to New Orleans after the former had enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. In an era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even their young children knew them as "mom" and "auntie" until Scales left in 1998. The two got married as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in 2014.

"We were going to live as out loud as we could because we had been silent and suffocating for so many years," Jordan told GLAAD.

Also featured are Matty Maggiacomo and Evan Feeley, who met on Grindr just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They kept in touch while socially distanced, speaking every night on the phone or FaceTime, and mailing each other handwritten letters. The two moved in together in 2021, and the rest is history.

"We hope the GLAAD I Found You campaign will not only serve as a source of inspiration and representation but will showcase the beautiful diversity within our community, especially during a time when DEI is wrongly considered a weakness," Aaron continued. "The stories featured in 'GLAAD I Found You' are not merely sidebar or niche features; they are front-page worthy."

To read the couples' full stories, and the stories of other LGBTQ+ married couples, click here. To submit your love story for publishing consideration on GLAAD platforms, click here.