Rhode Island’s celebration of the Supreme Court‘s historic decision allowing same-sex couples to marry across the United States was also a history lesson about the long battle for full LGBTQ acceptance in our state. Organizer Kate Monteiro spoke eloquently and introduced a steady stream of speakers, but more importantly she paused to remember those who didn’t live long enough to see this day, those who are only spoken of “in the echoes of the wind.”
We live in a better world because of their work and sacrifice.
The celebration was held at the Roger Williams National Memorial, because, explained Monteiro, this is where “religious freedom in the United States was born” and where Belle Pelegrino and the ’76ers first met to demand the right to march in Providence with a sign saying ‘I am gay.'”
“We stand at the top of a very, very high hill,” said Monteiro, “we have carried that pack and we have wanted for water and struggled and slipped and we stand at the top of a hill. And the view is beautiful. It is absolutely splendid. And just a little bit further is the next big hill. Because we are not at the top of the mountain, never mind the other side of the mountain.”
“Tomorrow, in 29 states, someone can be fired for being gay or lesbian, let alone transgender. (That, thank you, is 32 states)… That’s wrong, we need to change it, that is the mountain.”
“Can you imagine if we could go in time and bring Roger Williams here today?” asked Rodney Davis to laughs, “but when you boil it down and get to its purest sense, Freedom, Liberty and Justice was the reason why he came here…”
]]>The big day is Thursday, August 1 – for both Rhode Island and Ferri and Caparco.
“We’re very excited,” Tony told me on the phone today and Frank fielded a call from another local reporter. “It just means so much to us.”
Ferri and Caparco have been together for 32 years and they were married in Vancouver in 2006. It was their 25th anniversary together.
“That was a more simple ceremony,” Caparco said. “It was more low key and emotional.”
Their second wedding on Thursday, they both said, will be more of a celebration of their right to marry in Rhode Island – an effort that both were an instrumental part of.
Ferri was politically active in the campaign for marriage equality when they married in 2006, but he was still 14 months removed from declaring he would run for elected office. Fast forward to 2013 and, as a high-profile and highly respected openly gay legislator, Ferri was a crucial part of the very successful campaign to pass same sex marriage rights in Rhode Island this year. House Speaker Gordon Fox, who is also gay and was perhaps even more instrumental in marriage equality, will marry Frank and Tony on Thursday.
While the whole affair has the feeling of a royal wedding, Ferri said it doesn’t seem so from he and Tony’s vantage point.
“It’s a little bit stressful,” he told me when he got off the phone with another reporter. “We’re still pulling all the details together.”
The rehearsal dinner is tonight for the 35 person wedding party. And as Ferri and I chatted, yet another reporter called. In the background I could hear Tony tell him a TV crew would be at their house in 45 minutes.
“45 minutes,” Ferri said to his fiance, “I’m not even shaved yet.”
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