In response to the growing amount of interest in the marriage equality debate that is going on nationwide, a new coalition has been formed to organize and rally the community in what could be the most important year in the GLBT civil rights movement. The San Diegans Against Marriage Discrimination Coalition is drawing bipartisan support not just from the GLBT community, but also from the heterosexual community where more and more people are recognizing that marriage is a right that every individual deserves. With so much media attention focused on the marriage debate right now, the organization has recognized the opportunity to educate the mainstream public on the importance of marriage equality.

“News programming in the San Diego market carried 200 stories over the last 10-day period on same sex marriage,” Robert Nelson, communications chair for the coalition said at a town hall meeting at The Center on Monday evening, Feb. 23. “That doesn’t include national coverage – that’s just locally-originated coverage. Coordinating the spokespeople for our community is The Center.”

An estimated 250 people, some of whom had been to San Francisco to be married, packed the auditorium at The Center for the town hall meeting to learn more about the coalition and to hear speakers talk about the legal obstacles that the GLBT community faces in this struggle. Fortunately, the news was good.

“Now it is correct that California’s family code defines marriage as between a man and woman, and Prop. 22 further extended the law to prohibit the recognition of marriages between same sex couples from other states,” said the ACLU’s Dale Kelly Bankhead. “But there is this little thing called the Constitution. I love the Constitution and that’s what makes it legal, and there is equal protection under the law. … That’s exactly what all of this legal process is all about. [It’s about] saying, ‘That law is not a good law and it violates the Constitution.’ And is this renegade activity? Well if Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks were afraid to push the law … we would still be living under Jim Crow.”

This week President Bush endorsed a Federal Marriage Amendment, that would write discrimination against the GLBT community into the Constitution of the United States, and even though the meeting took place prior to Bush’s announcement, the coalition had already outlined the threat that the proposed amendment poses.

In order for the amendment to be written into the Constitution, it must be approved by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. It is believed that there are enough votes in the Senate to pass the amendment, but the House is still in question. Then, the amendment would have to be ratified by a three-fourths vote, from 38 of the 50 states, in order to go into effect. Currently 38 states have defense-of-marriage laws or amendments prohibiting marriage for gays and lesbians.

The coalition urges community members to take a vocal stand and challenge the ideas of the right wing.

“What we have to do is put the people who want to keep us from getting married on the defensive,” said Barbara Cox, a professor at the California Western School of Law. “We need to talk about marriage equality. We need to talk about why our relationships are strong and loving and committed. We need to put them on the defensive saying, ‘Why are you prohibiting us from getting married?’”

The growing amount of coverage given to the marriage equality debate, and the 3,000-plus marriages that have been performed in San Francisco over the last few weeks are proof of the growing visibility and intensity of the issue.

“We are on the precipices of history — you are in this room because you know that,” said local attorney and activist M.E. Stephens. “We are standing on the edge and our heroes are in this room … and our heroes are the people who were brave enough to go up to San Francisco and get married.”