In reaction to President George W. Bush's proposed constitutional amendment to define legal marriages as strictly heterosexual, gay rights activists and supporters from Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore community at large gathered at two different forums in the past week to discuss strategies for defeating Bush's proposal, advance gay-rights legislation and respond to discrimination.
First, a town hall meeting on marriage equality for same-sex couples drew a crowd of hundreds to the Glass Pavilion on Thursday, Feb. 26, with a focus on practical steps to block two state legislative bills that propose to curb the rights of same-sex couples.
Five days later, on March 2, an organization of Hopkins graduate students and the Women, Gender and Sexuality Department sponsored a public forum in the Greenhouse, during which participants discussed the impact of Bush's proposed marriage amendment on the Hopkins community and formulated ways in which the University could respond.
"We all want to emphasis that it's not an abstract debate," town hall meeting panelist and gay-rights attorney Ken Choe said. "There's real harm being done to real families when people can't marry."
During the town hall meeting -- which was primarily sponsored by the advocacy group Equality Maryland, along with the Hopkins chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA) and more than two dozen outside groups -- a panel of lawyers, lobbyists and activists encouraged same-sex couples in the audience to attend legislative hearings in protest of the proposed bills and amendment.
"If [the gay community] can bear witness, literally," Maryland Delegate Samuel Rosenberg said, "it will be harder for individuals to pass discriminatory laws."
Equality Maryland Executive Director Dan Furmansky pinpointed two Maryland State House bills as the biggest threats to gay couples in the state -- Bill 726, which would disallow state recognition of same-sex marriages, and Bill 16, a proposed amendment to Maryland's constitution that would only recognize heterosexual marriages.
Furmansky expressed both hope and urgency concerning the current legislations, saying, "This is the apex of what is our civil rights movement."
Throughout the meeting, five same-sex couples from Maryland gave personal testimonials concerning the problems they have faced because the state and federal government refuse to legitimize their unions.
The couples, all of whom had raised one or more children, related difficulties in extending proper healthcare to their partners, attaining permanent residence status for an immigrant partner and facing day-to-day discrimination.
"We're the all-American family," retired U.S. Navy Officer Nick Marulli said of himself and his partner Timothy Bennett. "How can it not be in the nation's best interest that we are a stable couple?"
Marulli, who had been treated for a brain tumor, worried that current laws preventing homosexual partners from having equal hospital visitation rights would make it difficult for his partner to deal with Marulli's illness should it recur.
In a phone interview following the event, Hopkins sophomore Michael Mueller, executive director of DSAGA, considered the question of rising conservatism within the gay rights movement.
"I think the gay civil rights movement is changing," Mueller said.
"It can't be exactly what it was in the '80s. In my personal opinion, it's okay for people to be more conservative because it's required as you branch into the mainstream."
Mueller also expressed some discontent with the status of the gay community on the Hopkins campus. "Hopkins is a conservative institution with a decentralized student life," Mueller said.
"That doesn't necessarily make it an environment where students are comfortable with their sexuality. There is hostility."
As the second gay-rights event of the week, the public forum on Tuesday addressed the concerns of Mueller and other members of the Hopkins community.
Both undergraduates and graduates attended, as well as members of the University's faculty and staff.
Colin Johnson, a post-doctorate fellow in the Women, Gender and Sexuality program, moderated the forum, which was sponsored by the Coming Community, a new group of mostly anthropology graduate students who discuss and conduct informal research on a diverse array of current issues.
Johnson encouraged participants to recognize that a multiplicity of concerns existed within the gay community.
"This is not a for-or-against issue," Johnson said.
Anthropology professor Veena Das suggested that the Bush administration's decisions to withdraw funding from countries with progressive family planning policies and legalized abortion were "aligned to a larger agenda around sexuality and politics."
James Williams, an anthropology graduate student and organizer of the Coming Community, not only expressed concerns that discrimination could increase on campus as a result of the tone set by Bush's proposed marriage amendment, but that the amendment issue was "monolithically shadowing the small, practical movements."
"With a sudden sense of crisis, practical small steps could move backwards," Williams said. "Couples [at the town hall meeting] were talking about small, practical issues. The debate on the nature of marriage could obscure or complicate those issues."
Discussions at the forum ranged from the biological aspects of sexuality to the necessity of legalized marriages to the politics of Bush's proposed amendment.
While a few forum participants praised Hopkins for the comprehensive domestic partnership arrangements provided for its faculty, most agreed that the level of tolerance on-campus needed improvement.
"I know some prospective international graduate students who want to come here," Williams said. "But they hesitate because they're worried about this aspect of the University, the environment."
"[Bush's proposal] is not just an issue for sexual minorities but for all minorities," Das said. "I'm worried that the message is that minorities should be satisfied with fewer rights, and that could draw out politics of intimidation."
