MCC’S Founder Wins California Supreme Court Marriage Case!
May 16, 2008 By Development
See below for a note from current CTS Trustee and MCC Moderator, the Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson. The Rev. Troy Perry is a former member of the Seminary’s Board of Trustees.
Dear MCC Friends:
MCC Founder Rev. Troy Perry has spent a lifetime changing history and making history — and today, he did it again.
This morning, the Supreme Court of California ruled in favor of the marriage lawsuit jointly brought by Troy and his spouse, Phillip Ray De Blieck, along with MCC friend and LGBT activist Robin Tyler, and her partner, Diane Olson.
I am thrilled to share Troy and Phillip’s heartfelt statement below.
Equality for all people, including marriage equality, has been an integral part of Troy’s passion and ministry for almost 40 years. It’s worth remembering that in 1969, as the Stonewall Rebellion took place in New York City, Troy was already organizing the LGBT community in Southern California, had already established Metropolitan Community Churches — and had performed what Time Magazine has credited as the first public same-sex wedding in the United States. All before Stonewall — amazing!
And in January of 1970, Troy made history again when he filed the first-ever lawsuit in the United States seeking legal recognition of same-gender marriages. The court dismissed the case before it ever came to trial, but it accomplished something profound: It birthed the marriage equality movement, and with it, four decades of debate, activism, struggle, prayer and persistence.
May a new generation of activists rise up and continue Troy’s example of changing our world and working for an end to discrimination and injustice — until our brothers and sisters in Jamaica no longer are attacked and killed solely for their sexual orientation and gender variance, until LGBT people in Pakistan no longer face the threat of death if found to be lesbian or gay, until LGBT people in Moldova can freely march in the streets without being targets of mob violence, until LGBT people no longer are smeared and ridiculed by the tabloid press in Nigeria, until our brothers and sisters no longer experience rejection from churches and communities of faith, until teens and young adults no longer take their own lives because they believe God hates them.
Until that day, ours is an unfinished world.
And it’s a reminder that for Metropolitan Community Churches, ours is an unfinished calling.
Grace and peace,
Nancy
Rev. Nancy L. Wilson
MCC Moderator
Posted in Social Justice, CTS
