Fundraising Appeal – Delaware Right To Marry
Guest post by Bill Humphrey of Delaware Right to Marry
My name is Bill Humphrey and I am the Statewide Director of Delaware Right to Marry Political Action Committee. I want to thank Unstable Isotope and liberalgeek for helping us get the word out about our effort, which made its public launch on Thursday evening. Many of you are familiar with me a bit from my comments on this site or from my political talk show on WVUD. Delaware Liberal was definitely one of the first few sites I thought of to mention the launch, as you might have seen in Thursday’s open thread, and I’m glad to have this opportunity to expand on that.
To let you all know what is going on, we are working to pass our proposed marriage equality bill (summary here) through the state legislature during the 2011 legislative session. During the late winter/early spring we will be announcing various ways you can get involved and events you can help out at, but of course like any campaign, we do need money right now. If you can spare some for us, we would really appreciate it. I will try to answer any questions you might have in the comments on this thread when I get a chance during the day, and you can certainly email me (director at delawarerighttomarry.com).
Our first goal is to raise $25 each from 106 people, totaling $2650, by December 16 (because I will be away after that and unable to deposit checks for a couple weeks), which will pay for the first statewide public opinion poll taken on any gay issues in several years. We will be testing support for marriage equality, civil unions, and specific provisions or variations upon our marriage proposal. This poll is going to be essential for demonstrating support for marriage equality to state legislators.
We don’t have an online system yet, so we’re only taking checks at the moment, which should be made out to “Delaware Right to Marry PAC.” (In fact, we will be able to lower our fundraising goal with more checks and fewer credit card donations anyway because we keep 100% of the face value of checks.)
Our address is:
Delaware Right to Marry PAC
PO Box 590
Newark DE 19715
Please provide a means of contacting you in case we have any questions about your contribution for legal purposes. And we want to be able to send you a thank you note, of course!
There are no contribution limits to PACs in the state of Delaware, but you must be at least 18 years of age, a U.S. citizen, and making the donation from a non-corporate account on your own behalf only (or else there is special documentation required first). Please be sure to provide your full name, address, employer, and occupation for our reporting requirements. Your contribution is essential, as we are a low-budget, all-volunteer operation.
Thanks,
Bill Humphrey
Statewide Director
Delaware Right to Marry PAC
PS: If you have not seen our website, be sure to check it out.
On the web: http://www.delawarerighttomarry.com/
On Twitter: @DERightToMarry
On Facebook: Delaware Right to Marry PAC
Tags: Delaware, Same Sex Marriage
Serious question–if a same sex couple marries in a “right to marry” state, but divorce elsewhere–is there a legal proceeding for that divorce, or just a parting of the ways?
There should be a precedent developing in Texas (if the case isn’t finished) with a couple that married in MA and tried to divorce in TX. The state didn’t want to let them divorce because they didn’t recognize the marriage. I’m not sure what the current status of the case is, however.
That’s a good question Joanne. I think that there are some cases actually working their way through the courts now. One in particular is in Texas where two men were married in MA and are trying to officially divorce in Texas.
I’ve only seen w/ friends splitting, the issue was around the child(ren)–one because surrogacy was involved, and one because one partner carried. Very messy. Assets didn’t seem to be the prickly part–all parties were independently of means–but the proceedings seemed to go between two states. Still going on–so I don’t know all the nitty gritty of the outcome–but this in between is messy, as they both share. Not sure about “union” status though.
bill, i think since it is in Texas, they will both just wind up being executed.
This is fantastic. From an economic standpoint, can you imagine what that would do for the beach wedding industry in rehoboth/dewey/lewes? They could market it as a desination wedding venue in an already gay-friendly community centrally located from major metro areas on the east coast. Maybe people in Sussex wouldn’t be so hesitant when the saw the jobs coming to town along with couples.
That’s a great point, V. I know there have been studies on other states about potential economic impacts of marriage equality related policies, but I do not know of one for Delaware yet (not surprising, of course). If you have any ideas on how to quantifiably project that, please let me know, and I will look into it. For now, we can certainly incorporate the hypothetical into our arguments, but it would be nice to have some more solid data. I know it’s been great for my home state (Massachusetts), however.
Did anyone see that “Will and Grace” episode when Will and Jack decided not to buy in a community–and the community went into an outrage, saying they were counting on “them” to spark the economy, bring in cute boutiques and great restaurants? Jack and Will said they were “lazy gays” and didn’t want to do that work–they wanted a community where it was already done. Too funny.
Here is some video of Governor Markell discussing civil unions with a blogger roundtable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnh7IwaO81c
Civil unions comes up at the 3 minute mark and lasts about 2 minutes.
So, any pledges yet? I think I’m up to $150 in pledges or cash-on-hand so far from my initial round of fundraising. Thanks for your support, in advance!