‘Out’ day inspires wedding
by Lindsay Sandham & N.S. Garcia
The Metropolitan
Auraria Campus’ annual National Coming Out Day celebration took on a whole new meaning this year.
For one couple, it will forever be the date of their wedding anniversary. And for another, it will be the anniversary of the third time they exchanged matrimonial vows.
Matt Jonas / The Metropolitan
Metro students Erin Durban and Mishka Char celebrate their non-traditional union in the traditional way, by feeding each other wedding cake. The couple was married on campus, along with another couple who renewed their vows, Oct. 12 in correlation with Auraria's National Coming Out Day celebration. This is the second same-sex marriage to be held on Auraria campus, the last was in 1996 when dozens of same-sex couples exchanged vows.
From Auraria to eternity
Four brides stood under the flagpole at 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12 and declared their love and devotion to their significant others. They didn’t wear white and there were no grooms. There were no bridal showers or bachelorette parties. Not even a marriage certificate.
Just two couples who wanted to make a formal commitment to each other in public, regardless of the legality of their union, in front of whoever cared to bear witness.
Metro students Erin Durban and Mishka Char have known each other for three years, have been a couple for nine months, already live together and share two kittens. They decided to take the next step about a month ago.
Karen Bensen, director of the Auraria Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Student Services, and Cindy Deim have been a couple for 11 years, share a 6-year-old son, Anten, and have exchanged wedding vows three times.
They were married August 7, 1993, and renewed their vows on campus in 1996, when dozens of same-sex couples were married in a community service at St. Cajetans.
Bensen said that renewing their wedding vows is important to her and Deim because, she said, she feels that after awhile people tend to take their relationships for granted.
This year, the Rev. Emily Hassler of the United Church for Christ in Washington Park performed the ceremony while passers-by stopped and watched.
Hassler said God created people to “belong to each other with affection and tenderness.”
Each couple wrote their own vows and shared small anecdotes.
Durban wore a dress and Char wore a tuxedo for the ceremony.
“’Cause I don’t like to wear dresses and Erin has a really pretty dress,” Char said.
Bensen said it’s already non-traditional for gays to get married so they have the advantage of making up the ceremony however they want.
Durban and Char will not have an immediate honeymoon because they both have school and work, but the couple is going to Tucson, Ariz., for a week in November.
“I proclaim these ladies joined together in love and life, from here to eternity. Let no one and no state separate,” Hassler said, closing the ceremony.
Cake, Christ, and Conservatives
“I was nervous about it because I didn’t know how people would respond,” Bensen said. “But people were really supportive, whether they agreed with it or not they helped make it a sacred place. We couldn’t have asked for a better response.”
Metro student Jennifer Thomas said she wished more gay couples would have been involved in the ceremony.
Gay marriage has become a heated social, political and religious topic nationwide with strong ties to Colorado.
Char said she wanted to marry Durban “because I think she’s amazing.”
“It is also a political statement because everyone deserves equal rights,” she said. “Nothing’s going to change; we still love each other.”
Gay couples in this country cannot file taxes together or share any of the civil union benefits that straight unmarried couples have.
Colorado Republicans Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave have sponsored an amendment and an act in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, respectively.
The amendment would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Meanwhile, the act in the House would have limited the jurisdiction of district courts to rule on marriage issues. Both legislations were defeated.
Currently, Colorado has laws defining marriage between a man and a woman. Several other states have adopted similar laws, others will vote on amendments this November.
Hassler said while the ceremony today wasn’t legal, her church keeps records of all marriages and hopes gay couples will eventually be grandfathered in when “the state catches up.”
Durban said people who are against gay marriage are generally opposed to it being tied to religion or taking place in a church; they are not necessarily opposed to civil unions.
Ron Gustman, an ordained minister and director of Christian Challenge, a religious group on the Auraria campus, said he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, “as defined in the Bible.”
But the couples married on campus were married by a reverend, therefore there are some religious connotations.
“There’s definitely a religious aspect to it,” Durban said. “The cool thing about Emily and her church is that they work with people where they’re at; it’s really progressive.”
“It’s basically like we’re married in our minds, but in the state’s minds and the country’s minds, we’re not married,” Char said.
Gustman said he sees the Bible as the “bedrock of our society.”
“If we begin to redefine what marriage is, it can unravel what our society is all about,” he said.
Greg Oppenhuizen, a senior at UCD and member of Christian Challenge, said when he attended college in Michigan the campus had an event similar to Auraria’s National Coming Out Day celebration and said Christian groups protested. He said he’s glad the same thing didn’t happen here.
Matt Jonas / The Metropolitan
Erin Durban and Mishka Char hold hands as they exchange matrimonial vows on the Auraria campus Oct. 12 during Auraria's National Coming Out Day celebration.
“Jesus loves me and homosexuals. I’m not better than them,” he said. “We have a big, good and just God who can forgive.”
“I want the world to know”
National Coming Out Day is officially Oct. 11, but the GLBTSS office decided to celebrate it this year on Tuesday because they did not want to interfere with Columbus Day and any marches or protests that may have been going on.
Bensen said if there are more gay couples who wish to marry, the campus wedding might become a tradition.
“It’s important to have a space where you can make a public commitment to each other,” Durban said.
Oct. 11 is the anniversary of the first GLBT march on Washington in 1987, according to Bensen.
Metro student Mike Frazier said that for him, National Coming Out Day is a time for all members of the GLBT community to acknowledge themselves as people and as a community.
“It means showing who you are and being yourself in front of everyone else,” Thomas said.
Coming out is easier for some then for others.
“Coming out is a very personal thing. National Coming Out Day is a time for us to acknowledge all of our personal stories and struggles,” Frazier said.
Durban said she came out when she was 14 and Char came out when she was 19.
“When I came out, I came out,” she said. Although her parents did not know right away, Durban said she came out pretty publicly in her community and became involved in social justice work and human rights. Her parents figured it out eventually.
“They’ve gone through all the different processes parents go through,” she said. She comes from a very right-wing Catholic family and she said there were obstacles involved in her coming out.
“”When I went home for the holidays last year, they told me I couldn’t sit at the adult table until I brought my boyfriend home,” she said. “But I brought Mishka home this
year and they loved her.”
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