Rabbi Lisa Edwards (left) and Tracy Moore (Kenna Love)

Asking for something they can’t get is a form of protest that is part of the annual day of “Marriage Counter Actions” in support of gay marriage that started on February 14, 2001.

The protests are not directed against marriage itself or couples that can get married. Marriage Equality USA, one of the organizing groups, tells members to bring children, friends and family and hand out flowers and chocolate to heterosexual couples waiting to be wed. 

In past years, Margee Churchon, Jewish community liaison at Marriage Equality USA, went to the marriage counter at City Hall in San Francisco, where she lives. “I cry every year,” she said, and continued, “How do you ask someone for a civil right? How do you ask them to validate who I am?” 

In California, same-sex marriage was only legal for a short period of time in 2008. In 2000, voters had passed Proposition 22 that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples. Then, in May 2008, a California Supreme Court decision struck it down, declaring marriage a right for everyone. Six months later, opponents of gay marriage put Prop 8 on the state ballot. The controversial proposition put an end to gay marriage in California by a 52-48 margin. But between June 2008 and elections in early November, same sex marriages were legal in California.

While a majority of Californians voted for a ban on gay marriage, Jewish voters in LA were among Prop 8’s strongest opponents. According to the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, 78 percent of Jewish voters said no to Prop 8. 

Churchon, 23, an observant Jew, attributes this to a long history of Jewish involvement in the struggle for civil rights. The Reform movement started ordaining gay rabbis in the early 1990s and many Reform congregations and rabbis have taken a stand for gay rights. The Conservative movement leaves it up to individual rabbis whether they officiate at same-sex ceremonies, but Conservative rabbinical schools started admitting openly gay students in 2006 and ordains graduates. The Orthodox movement does not condone homosexuality. 

Prop 8 hit close to home for Rabbi Lisa Edwards, spiritual leader of the Reform congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) in Los Angeles. “I was very sad when [Prop 8] passed, but not surprised,” said Edwards. Founded in 1972, BCC was the country’s first synagogue to serve the Jewish LGBT community. Edwards, 58, became BCC’s rabbi in 1994. Many interfaith couples find it a welcoming home and about 10 percent of its members are heterosexual.

“It was like living in a bubble,” Edwards said of the sliver of time in which gay marriage was permitted. She officiated at 43 weddings during this “window of opportunity,” and married her long time partner, Tracy Moore. 

More than one third of BCC’s members were married while the window was open, including Eric Kamm and his Christian partner, Peter Carlson. The couple had a civil ceremony officiated by a judge and will have a religious wedding later this year.

“It wasn’t the wedding we wanted, but the wedding we needed,” said Kamm, an accountant, who serves as a lay service leader at BCC. 

Kamm, who contracted HIV 11 years ago, said that being legally married to his partner provides a sense of security to both men. In case his infection turned into AIDS, Carlson would have full visitation rights and could make important decisions on Kamm’s behalf. 

He feels sorry for gay couples that were not able to get married, as does his rabbi.

“It is not very comfortable and fair,” said Edwards about the difference between legally married same-sex couples and those that can’t marry now. Frustrated about Prop 8, she stopped signing state marriage licenses altogether. She said she realized she was in a paradoxical situation: The state of California would not allow her to get married, but she could officiate at other people’s weddings. 

But getting married is not a desirable goal for everyone in the diverse Jewish LGBT community. Karen Wilson chose not to marry her partner when it was legal. The couple wanted to make the decision on their own terms. 

“While heterosexuals in the US are abandoning marriage at record rates, gays and lesbians are fighting to join a dying institution,” she pointed out. To Wilson, the political fight over same sex marriage unintentionally distracts from the original meaning of marriage as “an act of personal commitment.”  

For many members of the Jewish LGBT community, coming to terms with the new reality after November 2008 takes time. Todd Shotz, 37, a part-time Hebrew teacher and owner of a production company, said the election weekend was bittersweet. He was in Las Vegas supporting Barack Obama, when he started getting calls and texts about Prop 8. “It was a really awful drive home,” he remembered. 

While the case of gay marriage makes its way through the first stages of the federal court system, annual Valentine’s Day protests and rallies give activists like Churchon something to hold on to.

“It’s hard for everyone involved,” she said, and added, “No one wants to say no to love.” 

Reach Jessica Donath here.