Same-sex unions part of equality march
Surrounded by red hearts of Valentine’s Day, Betty Cantu and Siria Jones were one of three same-sex couples to wed in ceremonies that followed a PFLAG equality march in Brownsville Friday. The marriages are not legally recognized in Texas.
“Meet Mrs. Jones!” Siria Jones said after the ceremony at Cobbleheads Bar & Grill, smiling and throwing her arms around her partner.
They considered it a moment for hope, organized by the Brownsville chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a nonprofit organization known as PFLAG. Chapter president Yolanda Speece said the ceremonies were planned well before the news on Tuesday that California’s Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court. Proposition 8 was a ban on gay marriages approved by California voters in 2008.
Cantu’s and Siria’s union is not recognized by the state, but they said their hope is that someday Texas will register same-sex marriages. Their ceremony was conducted by an officiant from Brownsville’s All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church.
“We thought it would be wonderful to get married during an equality march,” Cantu said. “I’m asking for the same rights as most people have; to stand up there are say ‘I’m going to marry the woman I love, regardless of whether you approve or not.’ That meant a lot to me.”
For the couple, Friday was a moment 10 years in the making.
Cantu, 26, and Jones, 29, said they fell in love as they spoke in an online chat room all those years ago. Jones eventually moved from New York City to the Rio Grande Valley to be with Cantu.
“We’ve been together so long. … I love her. I just can’t see my life without her. I can’t,” Jones said, embracing Cantu.
The two, both members of the PFLAG Harlingen chapter, described themselves as best friends who have lunch together every day.
“If we go more than three hours without seeing each other we get headaches,” Cantu said.
Speece said the equality march began at Veterans Park to symbolically recognize last year’s repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which allowed gay people to serve in the military as long as they did not make their sexual orientation public.
She said several groups joined to organize the event. The march was escorted by the Brownsville Police Department and an equality group from the university along with others volunteers helped.
At least one candidate for public office was spotted in the audience wearing a campaign button, and campaign literature was set on a table. Cobbleheads’ owner allowed the deck to be used for the ceremonies, Speece said. The establishment was also the site of a 2010 campaign stop for Gov. Rick Perry, who opposes gay marriage.
“Texas needs to get with the times and look forward instead of backward,” Speece said.
Speece said PFLAG Brownsville became an official chapter in Oct. 2010 and the event on Friday was planned far in advance.
“We needed to take it to the next level,” she said. “‘We thought, ‘how?’ We do something nice for somebody and we’re giving people something to talk about, look at and think about.”
John Sutterby, the minister that performed the ceremonies, said the Unitarian Universalist Church has recognized same-sex marriages since at least 1987. He said several members of his church participated in the march.
“As a clergyman, I want to recognize any couple that has love for each other, that wants to devote to each other for the rest of their lives,” he said. “What the state does is something completely different and that’s up to the state to decide how they’re going to recognize this union, at this point not a legally binding agreement but sometime in the future it may be, maybe sooner than later.”
Jones and Cantu acknowledged that it is challenging to be in a same-sex relationship in a conservative state. Jones said in New York, most people don’t seem to care about someone else’s sexual preference, but it’s been different for her in Texas.
“Being in Texas where it’s, I guess, macho and mainly Hispanics live here, it does get hard because even to our own community and our own parents, they don’t approve,” Cantu said.
“I can’t stop smiling,” Jones said. "We’re not trying to harm anybody. We just want to love. That’s all we want."
