Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 3rd, 2006
The next time anti-gay activists claim that the love that gay couples feel for one another isn’t really love, but is instead some sort of counterfeit imitation of it, I’d like for them to take a good hard look at this photograph.
The two men in the photograph are Ray Vahey and Richard Taylor. For nearly forty-nine years, they were devoted partners who did not speak openly about their lives, neither to their family nor to their friends at work. But when Wisconsin extremists proposed an amendment to the constitution banning gay marriage, Ray and Richard decided it was time to end the silence. Last December, they testified at a state hearing on the proposed amendment.
Richard and I met and fell in love in 1956. For 49 years, we have yearned for a marriage recognized in America. Yet until this year, we had never come out in a public way. We decided this cause is not only worth it to us but to millions of others…
Richard was a World War II veteran, having served on a navy tanker on convoy duty in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Later, his tanker was moved to the Pacific where it operated in the battle of Iwo Jima. It later came under kamikaze attack at Okinawa.
Richard voluntarily put himself into harm’s way to protect his country and the rights of all Americans of that day, and all of the generations that have followed. Now there is an attempt to separate Richard from society and take away his right to equality under the law.
Richard and Ray had planned a religious wedding ceremony for September 16, which would have been their fiftieth anniversary together. But Richard became ill, so they moved the date up to last Memorial Day. Richard died last Friday at the age of eighty-one.
The next time someone claims that gay couples are incapable of stable, long-term relationships, I’d like for them to take a good hard look at this photograph. This is the very picture of love and dedication. Nearly fifty years ago, they met and fell in love, and they remained together throughout those decades in the face of tremendous obstacles and discrimination, yearning for their relationship to be acknowledged and recognized. The next time someone claims that gay couples are a danger to marriage, I’d like for them to know about Ray and Richard.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Ray Vahey in his time of loss.
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