John, I'm emailing you today to respectfully ask if you'll chip in your very first donation to our grassroots campaign. Before I do that, I’m gonna share a personal story about pride, love, and why I will *never* stop fighting for our LGBTQIA+ community in PA and across the country. It's kind of long, but it's important:
Bill Gray and John Kandray didn't have a typical wedding ceremony.
For one thing, it was held in my unfinished loft, with only a matter of hours to prepare. Things were a bit hectic. But the air was electric, because it would be the first same-sex marriage ever performed in Allegheny County.
This was 2013, and under the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex marriage was banned in Pennsylvania.
Two couples deeply in love: Bill Gray and John Kandray, joined by John and Gisele
I thought it was a disgrace that Pennsylvania had made discrimination a part of our state law — that's why I proudly joined the "Mayors for the Freedom to Marry" (the first mayor in Pennsylvania to do so) and announced that I would do what no other elected official in the state would: Defy the state law and officiate same-sex weddings.
Bill and John were the first couple who called me, not long after they had driven hundreds of miles across Pennsylvania to obtain a license in Montgomery County. The county's register of wills had begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and they knew this was their chance to obtain one in their home state.
They had shared a life together for 11 years, with a house and two dogs. The fact that a couple as kind and nice as them could not marry each other showed that there was something fundamentally wrong with the system.
Bill and John didn't want to wait until the weekend. I couldn't blame them. They had been waiting for this moment for over a decade. So we held the ceremony on a Monday night right after work.
I put on my finest cargo shorts and black Dickies work shirt, picked up a rainbow cake from Costco, and we had ourselves a wedding surrounded by their family and friends. 🌈💛
For anyone who was there that night or saw the wedding on the news, it was impossible not to see the joy on Bill and John's faces and deny that their love was just as pure, just as valid as anyone else's. I ended up officiating over two dozen more same-sex weddings before the ban was finally overturned, but none were as memorable as that first one.
On MSNBC in 2013
Now that marriage equality is the law of the land, it's easy to forget that only a few years ago, Pennsylvania was just one of 35 states that still banned same-sex marriage. We were under legal threat from Republican Governor Tom Corbett's office, and a lot of people said what I was doing was disgusting and wrong.
But I never asked for a legal opinion. I never was concerned what performing these ceremonies would cost me personally. I was always going to choose to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences — and I was quite frankly disappointed in other elected officials who didn't step up and do the same.
Of course, the fight for equality didn't end that night in my living room. Bill and John's marriage still wasn't recognized by the state or federal government. But weddings like theirs helped to turn the tide for marriage equality — until finally, in May of 2014, a judge ruled that gay couples would no longer be relegated to second-class citizenship in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
And then in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages.
We've made some incredible progress, but there are still steps we need to take to ensure LGBTQIA+ Americans are treated as equal citizens. It's ludicrous that in 2021, someone can in many instances still be fired from their job, refused care at a hospital, or denied housing because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. How can we let students go to school everyday in an environment where they're afraid to be verbally or physically bullied?
We are better than this, which is why we need to keep moving forward. The Senate MUST pass the Equality Act. We're closer than we've ever been — and as a U.S. Senator, I want to make sure we get there. Expanding rights and protections for LGBTQIA+ Americans is a no-brainer, because just like in 2013, I'm always going to do the right thing regardless of the political consequences.
Yours,
John
John Fetterman
Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania
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