The first public marriage equality rally in San Diego took place last Thursday, March 18, at the County Administration Building, the culmination of a coordinated effort by many of the community’s most politically active organizations.

“What it took, and what I am finding works most effectively is working with the organizations that know San Diego and have been doing this work for quite a while,” said Jeffrey Mittman, special projects manager with Equality California, a national organization that recently set up shop locally at The Center as part of a national marriage equality campaign. “AJ Davis, of Marriage Equality California, was incredibly helpful,” said Mittman. “We were also successful working with the San Diego Democratic Club and Ebony Pride.”

Mittman also used the Internet as a way to quickly get the word out to the community through the various online list serves that target a variety of members of San Diego’s GLBT community.

“I found that it was a community-wide effort that we wanted to get out and tell our story and make sure that people are aware that down here in San Diego, marriage equality is important to us,” said Mittman.

More than 125 people turned out for the three-hour rally that included speakers M.E. Stephens, Larry Baza and Daniel Gonzales. Supporters for the rally carried signs and banners and members of the GLBT community who were in attendance were encouraged to bring family members and friends to show the growing number of people who support marriage equality.

The historically conservative County Board of Supervisors approved the permits for the rally, but getting the county to issue same-sex marriage licenses is another thing altogether, and likely to be an uphill battle. County Clerk Greg Smith has already said on the record that he does not intend to begin issuing marriage license to same-sex couples.

“There are people that I have talked to about the border subject of gay marriages, but there’s been no specific discussion about San Diego County doing that,” County Supervisor and mayoral candidate Ron Roberts told the Gay & Lesbian Times in a phone conversation, following the rally. “Unless the state law changes, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Roberts took the lead in encouraging the County Board of Supervisors to extend benefits to domestic partners, a decision that passed by a 3-2 vote. While many counties across the country have been reluctant to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a handful, including Oakland and Seattle, have made the decision to recognize same-sex marriages from other cities and have said that they will grant their employees benefits associated with marriage and domestic partnership.

“We have the domestic partners, and I don’t know what the difference in those would be,” Roberts said about the possibility of the county recognizing marriages performed in cities like San Francisco. “I would think that somebody that actually got married would qualify for the domestic partners in even a stronger way. I think until we get the clarification from the state Supreme Court, there is going to be a reluctance from this board to change anything.”

Some cities, counties and even state legislatures have taken it upon themselves to pass resolutions against the proposed Defense of Marriage Amendment that President Bush recently came out in support of.

“It could be brought up,” Roberts said about the possibility of a county resolution. “I would probably work with my colleagues to get a sense of what people are thinking. I remember the vote on domestic partners – there were two supervisors that went along with me on that and it was a big, very bold step for this county and it wasn’t that long ago. I don’t want to mislead you … but my feeling would be that there would not be a strong interest in taking a position and I would almost be more concerned that it would go the wrong way.”

While the county may not take immediate action, the rally did put the issue in front of members of the Board of Supervisors, forcing them to look at the issue of marriage equality.

“We are defending the constitution and the important point about that [is] if you can write discrimination into the constitution against one group, you can write discrimination into the constitution against any group,” rally speaker M.E. Stephens to told the Gay & Lesbian Times, following the rally. “It couldn’t be more obvious that this is wedge-issue politics targeted at the most vulnerable group in hopes that people will not get together. I think it’s exactly the time when we get to demonstrate that we are not doing wedge-issue politics anymore; that the African-American community, the Latino community, they understand that if the GLBT community is attacked, they are attacked and vice-versa. We have finally as a community come to understand that when there is Prop 54 on the ballot … that that is an attack on all of our communities that we need to respond to.”

Despite the fact that the county has not taken any action on the issue of marriage equality, Roberts did acknowledge the importance of the rally and what it means to San Diego. “What is so incredible, though, is I think everybody realizes that this society is changing,” he said. “It’s changing significantly and it always changes faster than some group wants, but there are things going on and the fact that we had this kind of demonstration here is very significant.”

Co-sponsors of the rally included Equality California, Ebony Pride, Marriage Equality California and the San Diego Democratic Club.