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DURHAM, NC. Sept. 27, 2008
(News and Observer)
DURHAM - Kathy Molineaux had a lot on her mind when she registered to vote at the N.C. Pride Festival on Saturday.
Molineaux, 28, moved to the Triangle last week to join her partner, Amanda, who recently started teaching here on a three-year visa. Amanda did not share her last name because her students don't know she's a lesbian.
The couple had been living in Scotland, where Amanda grew up. Molineaux is from Maryland, but because they cannot legally marry in the United States, she cannot sponsor Amanda for permanent residence.
"Couples like us are basically having to choose between their partners and their country," she said.
The couple hope that if Sen. Barack Obama becomes president, Congress will pass the Uniting American Families Act giving committed domestic partners the same immigration rights as married couples. Obama supports it.
Molineaux was not alone Saturday in looking ahead to November.
"We are on the doorstep of the most important political election of our day," Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt told the crowd on Duke's East Campus.
Kleinschmidt touted state appeals court judge candidate John Arrowood as the first openly gay man who could win a statewide election.
"If we fail to elect John and we fail to elect a president, a governor and a U.S. senator who recognizes us, the blame belongs with us," he said.
Kleinschmidt and others celebrated the late Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, who in 1987 became the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina. The path to the stage passed beneath a 20-foot-high inflated arch -- the Rainbow Memorial Arch -- in Herzenberg's honor. He died in October.
"His election opened the door for the rest of us who followed," said Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson, former mayor of Carrboro.
Nelson is hoping November will bring the defeat of bills in California and Florida that would pronounce gay marriage as unconstitutional. Equal rights supporters are also looking toward changes in the state Senate that might bring passage of an anti-bullying bill targeting harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
But the political energy at this year's festival focused on the presidential race, where Nelson said Obama is "steadfastly on the side of equal rights," whereas Sen. John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, has been criticized because her church believes religion can turn homosexuals into heterosexuals.
"Pray-away-the-gay Sarah Palin must be stopped," said parade chairwoman Sharon Thompson, a family lawyer specializing in protecting the rights of gay and lesbian parents.
Obama has actively courted the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered vote, creating a campaign arm called Obama Pride.
"Obama's one of the first major party candidates that's really come out and said he supports gay rights," said Alex Wach, a 21-year-old parade marcher who pulled a wagon with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Obama facing either side. "I take it as a sign that the country's coming around."
Molineaux hopes he's right.
At her July partnership ceremony in Scotland, she and Amanda jumped over a broom together, a ritual from when weddings between slaves had no legal standing. The broomstick symbolized the strength of people denied equal rights, once for their race and now for their choice of life partner.
So for Molineaux, Obama's candidacy has both practical and historic significance. Her 80-year-old grandfather Royster Norwood, the son of a slave, could live to see the first black president, and her wife could become an American.
"A lot's riding on this," she said. "We just put all our stuff up in storage to give America a try."
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