Attending the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Respect for Marriage Act (7/20/2011)

Thanks to our friends at the Courage Campaign, we were reserved seats at the first-ever Senate Judiciary Hearings on the repeal of DOMA, which would require the passage of Senator Feinstein's Respect for Marriage Act (I know it is a Wikipedia link -- but it is pretty good). The Respect for Marriage Act is simple -- it ERASES the Defense of Marriage Act from the United States Code. Robin and I left our hotel early on such a blasted hot day! The night before we went out to eat at Circa in DuPont Circle and when we were walking back to our hotel, the air was completely hot and still -- there was no breeze, no movement and we could not wait to just get back into our air-conditioned hotel room.

The morning was a little cooler and so we took a taxi to the Hart Senate Building, on a mission to meet Adam Bink at Senator Feinstein's office because he said that he needed some assistance with something. I snapped this shot in the taxi -- such a beautiful sight! When we arrived at the Senate Building, we were in the security line with this lesbian couple, their four children and their lawyer. I, of course, turned to them and asked them if they were here for the hearings and they said yes and we told them a little about why we were there. Little did I know that they would be in the front row at the hearings. When we met Adam in Sen. Feinstein's waiting area, we found out that he wanted our assistance in distributing "DUMP DOMA" pins to all the people attending the hearing. Once we got in line outside the hearing room, I worked the line and made sure that everyone had a button. Check out the photo stream from San Francisco Chronicle. The pictures #4, #9, #11 0f 13 is the couple we met in the security line.


We were not in the waiting line very long -- Rick Jacobs joined us and then we were soon in the hearing room in our reserved-ish seats. We were close to being VIPs, but not entirely :). We were just overjoyed to have a seat in the room. The room filled up quickly and there was no wasting time, the hearing were underway and we were witnessing history!
One of the heroes of the hour was certainly Rep. John Lewis. A pioneer of the civil rights movement, his impassioned testimony moved Robin and I to tears. Below is a link to the entire hearing: