In San Francisco, we have a new outreach partnership with Marriage Equality USA’s LOVING Quilt Project. The LOVING Quilt Project, curated by the effervescent Maya Scott Chung, is a traveling exhibit of quilts featuring beautiful story and photo collages of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex married couples along with their families. The project is about honoring families affected by the legislation against the right for all to marry. We are so thrilled to be working with this fantastic project to celebrate and preserve the voices and stories of these couples.
Dr. Erica Britton and Gwendolyn Bikis first met at a book club. They have been married several times; their right to marry has been overturned and marriage certificates nullified a few times over the course of their relationship. Last married in 2008 – the ‘Summer of Love’ – they are one of the 18,000 couples whose marriage is still recognized by the state of California after the passing of Proposition 8. As Erica says, ‘We are one of the fortunate few.’
Erica and Gwendolyn came to the StoryBooth and shared some of the moments when they felt “most married.” For Erica, it was after their wedding ceremony when the party was dying down, and she and Gwendolyn were sitting on the back of a pick-up truck, their feet dangling, watching the sunset and catching their breath together for the first time that day. For Gwendolyn, she feels most married on Saturday afternoons at home, when they argue about what to watch on TV. This, of course, made Erica laugh.
