Cathy Marino-Thomas is a marriage equality pioneer
who fought for the right to marry for herself and others
long before the movement’s inception.
Beginning in the early 1990s,
Cathy volunteered her time,
visiting with people living with HIV or AIDS
and helping them with daily chores and errands
and providing education to people about the disease.
All as a part of the gay men’s health crisis’s buddy program.
These people were often abandoned by their family and friends because of their illness.
Cathy and her counterparts were sometimes the only source of contact for their patients.
Appalled by the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 —
which effectively made same-sex marriage illegal nationwide —
Cathy led a grassroots movement called Marriage Equality USA.
For 17 years, because that’s how long it took.
But she never wavered, she never gave up, and she doesn’t regret one minute of it.
I’m Javier Muñoz and this is Legendary.
There is no wrong time for justice.
[Upbeat music plays]
Remind them that we exist.
Come out, get your friends, no excuses, let’s do this thing. Thank you very much.
[Cheering]
Hello, I’m Javier Muñoz and I’m here with Cathy Marino-Thomas.
Hello.
Thank you.
That’s what I’m going to start with, is by saying thank you to you.
And for all that you have done and given us as a community.
Thank you.
What’s the first moment or experience that’s the genesis of your-
even thinking that this was something that you were passionate about, you want to go do?
Well, it was really my wife that really started the whole thing.
In 1995 we had a wedding in a universalist church.
And it was a beautiful wedding, but at the end of the day, the next day, we didn’t have any more.
Then we had $8,000 before then, you know what I mean?
[Both Laughing]
We’re $8,000 lighter with no more rights and privileges than we had the day before.
So, I was like you know, I had already been an AIDS Buddy which we’ll talk about
Yes!
So, I knew that we could get up off our butts and make a change.
The GMHC Buddy program,
a lot of people don’t even know this existed, a lot of people don't know why it was even needed.
The need is the easiest thing to answer.
The need is
that nobody wanted to go near these folks.
Living with HIV and AIDS—
They didn’t want to help them.
And they needed services.
Most of the buddies in the beginning were the women in the community.
I’m proud of my lesbian sisters because we all really stepped up and did the work that was necessary.
[Upbeat Music Plays]
Lucky for us, GMHC saw this need and developed this great program
called Buddies, so they took it by borough.
And you would get assigned someone that was living with AIDS.
Generally not just HIV.
It would generally be someone who has had an AIDS diagnoses.
There were various things that we did from simple things like just going with them to the grocery store
because they felt unsure.
Or sometimes just sitting in the house with them and talking to them or something.
To light house work, all the way to hospital advocacy.
You know, you created a relationship with them and stuff and then they got sick and died.
That was difficult.
One of my friends—I was an AIDS buddy for him, so it’s kind of a connection—
he and his lover- they were together over 20 years
and they were living in a condo and that was in his lover’s name.
He was the stay-at-home husband and his lover was the person who worked.
So he supported him all their lives.
The lover got sick with AIDS.
He took him to the doctor appointments, all of the physical stuff with him, whatever.
He died. The sister came in, took the condo, took the money, took the belongings, out.
No marriage license.
No protections.
That changes with a license, so that’s how we started to turn it around, right?
Yeah.
You’ve got to make a connection with people.
What is it that they need to connect to understand this?
This is a worthwhile fight.
[Chanting] Change the laws!
[Various Chants]
We found some people.
They were starting a group called Marriage Equality New York.
And I reached out to them and they invited me to a meeting.
It was in one of their offices.
They was six people at the table, with me [it] made seven.
And we all sat around for a couple hours and talked about marriage equality and
what we thought our chances were to pursue this issue.
So we began to look for legislation that was started, and there was in the 70s, a bill in California
brought by the Reverend Troy Perry of metropolitan community churches.
Against the city of San Francisco for a marriage license in the 70s.
He was of course denied, but we took that and then we made a connection to a bill
that representative Gottfried has here in New York.
You know, we went there and we started to lobby and we started to get things together
and then we had a few setbacks.
You know, we didn’t have any wins for a long time.
As a matter of fact, we had George Bush and his attempted constitutional amendment.
So, Senator Ruben Diaz, from the Bronx
he decided he was going to have this big rally in favor of George Bush’s constiutional amendment.
So we thought this is a good opportunity for us to get some street cred behind this issue.
Let’s go there and counter protest them.
It seemed like a good idea at the time until we got off the train in the Bronx.
We had 20 people with us, we thought, 'Great, 20 people, we’re a strong group!'
5,000 of them, 20 of us.
The police penned us in.
Not because they didn’t want us to be there, but because they were trying to protect us.
We had our little signs, we walked around in a circle, shouting that they were wrong or whatever.
This lady kept coming up to the pen, smacking her bible on the thing.
So finally I looked over, the cop was looking at me, I went up to her and said,
'B*tch, you snap that bible at me one more time, and we’re going to have a big problem.'
So, you know, I started to feel empowered even though there were only a few of us.
But we were very dedicated-
Yeah!
And you’ve come that far.
We’ve come that far and we were there now and we had made a presence.
So we started to get some press around that.
And release stories and you know, we were learning quickly how to use the press to our favor.
Where to be, how to make 5 people look like 50.
All of that kind of stuff.
And it was working.
It was working.
I congratulate the civil marriage trail for their tireless effort in assisting couples
in the quest for marriage equality.
I applaud the couples who’ve made the journey.
And I pray for the couples who are about to make the journey in California this coming Tuesday.
I’m just going to let you talk about this, the wedding march. Brooklyn Bridge.
What was that like?
It was the idea of one guy—his name is Ron Zacky.
We were in like a town hall type setting.
This mission was to keep it in the news.
Even when there wasn’t a bill up for vote.
Or there wasn’t a debate on the issue.
The idea was to keep it in the news, how could we do that?
And we were trying to come up with something.
And he said, 'ah, we should just march across the bridge.'
And we were like, ‘WE SHOULD MARCH ACROSS THE BRIDGE!'
[Laughing]
’In our wedding gear!'
And it just went from there and it became an annual event for five years we did this.
The first time there were only like 150 people there.
By the second time, there were 5,000.
[Upbeat Punk Music Plays]
Edie was a Marriage Equality USA member.
I want to tell you that when I saw the first brief, when it said Edie Windosr V. United States,
I was scared to death.
If I had to survive Thea, what a glorious world I lived in.
I live in this world of love and community and joy.
And I thank everyone in this room for it, I really do.
One night, we were having a forum at the center and she came in with her wife in a wheelchair,
They were being told by HRC that they would have to wait.
And she was like, ‘I’m 77, I can’t wait.'
And she became our spokesperson in that moment.
I said, ‘this is the one.'
And we were right.
Nobody was messing with that little tiny woman.
[OBAMA] This morning the Supreme Court recognized that the constitution guarantees marriage equality.
In doing so, they have reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law.
[Upbeat Music Plays]
What kept you inspired, what kept you motivated, and what kept you going?
It’s that pain in here.
That’s the only way I can describe it, it’s like a driven, burning sensation, I don’t even know the word for it.
Like, I get up every morning and that’s the first thing I think of.
My advice to anyone who thinks they don’t have to do something right now is:
look into history.
Really, you need to do something.
However small.
Postcards, calling your representative.
Democracy doesn’t live and breathe on it’s own.
We have to bring life to it.
And if we stop bringing life to it, we’re going to live in a fascist nation.
We’re almost there.
So, if you don’t want that kind of a country, you must fight for it.
In a democracy, any law can be changed.
Any law.
[Various Chants]