The couple celebrated in Boston according to Fisher’s Facebook update:

On May 5, 2010 Jeff and Ed celebrate 20 years as a couple with a nice quiet dinner at Petit Robert in Boston. This gallery of photos documents their two decades together.

From us to you Jef and Ed, may you have many more wonderful years to come, and thank you for being a shining example of how equal gay marriage is to straight marriage! Even if we don’t have the right now, we will very soon.

The couple celebrated in Boston according to Fisher’s Facebook update:

On May 5, 2010 Jeff and Ed celebrate 20 years as a couple with a nice quiet dinner at Petit Robert in Boston. This gallery of photos documents their two decades together.

From us to you Jef and Ed, may you have many more wonderful years to come, and thank you for being a shining example of how equal gay marriage is to straight marriage! Even if we don’t have the right now, we will very soon.

There’s still time to enter, we have two more weeks of drawings, most on Friday’s but we will surprise you at least twice! Of course our Grand Prize, a 16GB 3G+WiFi Apple iPad will be drawn at the end of the month. To enter, all you have to do is tell us your story here in 300 words or so. Pretty easy, huh?

And again, we’re doing this so you can help Basic Rights Oregon (BRO) and our community repeal Measure 36 in the 2012 election! Go here to BRO’s site and upload a video of why marriage matters to you! While you’re there, sign the pledge, and donate your time and/or money to a great cause!

I sat down with Basic Rights Oregon’s (BRO) Executive Director Jeana Frazzini and Development Coordinator Juan Martinez to discuss what their strategy was for the 2012 election in Oregon, regarding marriage equality. This interview was done just as the Prop 8 case in California was kicking off. After discussing id Magazine and what we were looking to do, we jumped into our discussion:

id Magazine: Our theme for our issue is “Gay Marriage…Where Oregon is Headed” and we thought BRO would be the best place to start. Mostly because we’d like to shed light on your strategy and answer a few questions the community at large has.

Jeana Frazzini: I think it’s really timely, especially considering that just this week the challenge to Prop 8 in California kicked off. It’ll be interesting to follow it, as that process unfolds. It’s definitely going to be a long process, as we have learned from our own marriage court case here.

I don’t know if you know that Juan and his partner Byron were the lead plaintiffs.

How was that, it must of been pretty trying.

Juan Martinez: It was…it was something that I had never done in my life. To be outspoken about my life, you know my personal situation, my relationship. To tell our stories to a wider audience. This whole thing started in 2005, which is when we agreed to sign on as plaintiffs. It made me nervous at first, but Byron and I talked and talked about it over and over again. We both agreed this was an opportunity to stand up for what was right. To take this chance to help make a difference in any way that we could.

Because he and I are committed as a couple and we want to have the rights that come along with marriage equality. We truly believe in that and we won’t settle for anything less. We love each other so much and we want to take care of each other in every way that we can. so that’s why we stuck it out for the four years the lawsuit took it’s course. It just wrapped up the beginning of last year, when we were denied appellate level.

Frazzini: It’s interesting because the fact that the Oregon Supreme Court refused to hear the case Martinez vs. Kulongoski is in part in answer to your question, how did we land at the decision to appeal the marriage amendment in 2012, the decision and the timeline is because of what’s possible here. Last year, it was incredibly exciting to see the progress that was made, just by some of the setbacks around the country. Places like Iowa where there’s marriage equality now and Connecticut, New Hampshire and so forth.

In Oregon we have our own unique path, we don’t have the opportunity to address the issue in the courts. That door closed to us with the Martinez case being refused by the Supreme Court. We don’t have a legislator that can do this for us, it’s enshrined in the constitution that marriage is between one man and one woman. So the only way to undo that is with a public vote. The voters are going to have to amend the constitution to create marriage equality. That is something that has not been attempted anywhere in the country, to bring a proactive marriage equality measure will be something new.

It’s always been on our opposition’s timeline, it’s always been in the heat of having to defend ourselves; whether it was the marriage amendment in 2004 or any of the awful anti-gay ballot measures that faced in Oregon for 20 years. This is really the first time where we get to lay the groundwork and do this on our terms. It’s clear that, for us, it is important to take the time to lay a strong foundation of support, to not rush into a political fight when we know that in order to change people’s hearts and minds, they have to have this space and the opportunity to have heartfelt conversations with the people in their lives about why marriage matters; what it means to care for someone, to love and commit to somebody for the rest of your life, and to do the tough work of changing hearts and minds so that we get to a place where we’ve got the majority of the public in Oregon behind us.

2012 is in some ways trying to strike that balance of the urgency of securing the freedom to marry for our families, and at the same time to taking the time necessary to do that in a way that we know we can succeed. There are also considerations like the fact that it’s a Presidential election year and you get a much stronger progressive turnout at the ballot during a Presidential election year. The work started in 2009, the conversations have begun, the community engagement is happening and we’re committed to growing that involvement substantially this year. Getting to the point where we can collect the signatures to put it on the ballot starting in 2011, we’ll need to start that process and see it through to 2012.

Byron Beck, right, Juan Martinez

Frazzini: Well we’re striving to, you know, we are a statewide organization, and I say that knowing what a challenge it is to fulfill. Given the economic times, we’ve been impacted like everyone else so we have left a couple of key positions open that we’re now hoping early this year to refill one of those positions is our organizer based in Eugene. We have volunteer teams in five counties; we have organizers who are assigned work that touches pretty much every region of the state. I travel the state a couple times a year; we do both community events that are kind of a garden party series. We also meet with editorial boards of newspapers; we work to get out to all of the Pride celebrations that are happening around the state. It will take engagement in every one of our 36 counties to run a proactive ballot measure campaign on marriage equality.

One of the questions I’ve had is how are we going to flip the message from a religious battle and flip it on it’s ear and approach it from being a human rights issue?

Frazzini: I think that the way that we address, first of all we have for far too long we’ve let our opposition define what the position of communities of faith are. We need to lift up the voices of fair-minded communities of faith and there are plenty that recognize the full humanity gay and transgender people.

Yes! We see them in the Pride parade: probably the largest section of the parade.

Frazzini: Yeah, waves upon waves of them, I know! It’s wonderful. The truth is that this issue is not about winning a logical argument or debate; it’s about connecting with people with the values we all share. It’s about love, it’s about commitment, it’s about that marriage says we’re family like no other word. Marriage establishes a child’s place in the world. We have not had the honest conversation about what marriage means outside of a political battle, so people have made decisions about our lives based on political rhetoric and being forced to choose on the marriage amendment in the span of three or four months. What we’re talking about is in some ways incredibly revolutionary and very challenging, which is: Folks, we’ve got three years before this question comes up as a political yes or no question.

We’ve got to take the time starting now to start the conversation and to say to the people in our lives who – we maybe don’t know where they’re at on this issue or maybe we’re afraid and we know they’re not with us and we want to change that – it is up to each one of us whether we’re gay or straight for our loved ones and our allies, our friends and family who are not LGBT identified who get that this is an issue of fundamental fairness and it’s about love. We need to have those conversations so that the people in our lives are making a thoughtful decision knowing what it means to us in advance of a political decision on a ballot campaign.

Martinez: This past summer we had the opportunity to knock on doors to have conversations, face-to-face conversations with voters here in Portland, in five counties. I was working in the Metro area here, and it was interesting to have conversations with people who come from very traditional religious background saying to me that, “Well, marriage, marriage is a religious sanctimony (this should be sacrament, but if it’s a quote and you want to leave it put (sic) after it)…” and this and that. Just taking the moment to ask them, “So it sounds like you really care about the ability to take care of your family, to love the ones that you love and to provide for your family any way, shape or form.”

We need to make that connection, to make them understand that we want the same thing that everyone else has and wholly deserves to have. So it was interesting, they weren’t saying, “Leave my doorway,” they were taking the literature and saying, “You know what, I’m going to think about this. I still hold my position, and I appreciate the conversation.” That was my experience and that is what gives me hope that this educational campaign has what it takes to really change hearts and minds.

Frazzini: Yes, and I think at the same time it’s important to emphasize that the freedom to marry does not in any way, shape or form interfere with the freedom of religion. Today if you had a Jewish couple knock on the door of the Catholic church and say, “We want to be married in your church,” it’s fully within the church’s right to say, “I’m sorry, but we will only provide a marriage ceremony for folks who are members of our church, our denomination,” right? So that would apply with allowing same sex couples the right to legally marry in Oregon, it would change no church’s right to say, “This is not within our beliefs, we can’t perform a marriage of a same sex couple.” Nothing in the freedom of religion would change should the change to fully recognize our families. That’s a critical distinction, because there is a clear difference between marriage within the context of a religious ceremony and marriage within the context of the legal rights and responsibilities that our government controls.

Yes, and I recall many times hearing friends, celebrities etc. say, “Oh I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that our commitment is for real. It’s just a piece of paper.” Now, I understand as do a lot of the public, no it’s not just a piece of paper. There’re tons of rights and privileges that come with it. There are what, 2,200 rights it grants married couples?

Frazzini: I can’t recall, but I think on the state level it’s about 500 and the federal level it’s about 1,200 legal rights and responsibilities that come along with it. It certainly differs a little bit from state to state. It is significant both in terms of the legal protections, but also the respect and dignity that comes with marriage. The truth is that marriage is not for everyone, the issue overall is not necessarily the top issue for everyone in the LGBT community, that’s really clear.

The bottom line is that it is an issue of fundamental fairness; it is an issue in which it is one of the few remaining places in law where there is an explicit law exception where one group of people is treated differently under the law than another. That’s not to say there’re not all sorts of forms of discrimination that continue to persist in our society from racism to classicism and ageism. But this is about it when you look at the letter of the law, we’re saying as a state in our constitution that everybody enjoys the same rights and privileges in the State of Oregon, except for same sex couples and their families, somehow your commitment doesn’t meet the muster, and that’s not right.

Do you think that…I know with Maine one of things that came up was that quite a few bloggers and people were upset by the fact that the National DNC didn’t do more to help that campaign. I know it differs from state to state on how much support you get, but do you think because it’s a Presidential election that we will have a spotlight on us and we will get that support we need?

Frazzini: Right. I think that I am concerned at what I understand was the case in Maine, where the organizers on the ground for the national democratic party were not engaging in that campaign. It’s something that as we look to build the strongest possible coalition for the work here in Oregon that we’ll be working to build relationships and find ways to partner. Whether it’s with the DNC groups or our partners in Oregon progressive movement more broadly. I will say that we do have strong support within Oregon’s democratic party, there’s already strong support at the state and county level. We’re seeing marriage equality resolutions passed by the boards, which is really exciting.

I don’t expect, this has got to be a community effort, there’s not one organization that’s going to take care of this. It’s a community responsibility and that goes for at the organizational level and the individual level. I think we all have a personal responsibility regardless of how we identify to right this wrong. I think we will continue to see this effort build and gain momentum and see more visibility for the broad support that the freedom to marry has in Oregon. I think that’s what’s going to get us to a place where 2012 is a realistic time for a ballot campaign.

That is going to be the way this is going to be won, the one-on-one conversations, winning the hearts and minds.

Frazzini: Yes…Actually we have some incredible tools that we’d love to share with your readers, given your presence online, the ability to link to this stuff is wonderful we have the MarriageMattersOregon.org

id Mag: Yes! We found that…Thank you, we’re certainly sharing those with our readers. Thank you both for taking the time for us!

Byron Beck, left, Juan Martinez

I asked Martinez about the ordeal, the toll it seemed to take, and what was it like as an experience.

Martinez stated, “It was…it was something that I had never done in my life. To be outspoken about my life, you know my personal situation, my relationship. To tell our stories to a wider audience. This whole thing started in 2005, which is when we agreed to sign on as plaintiffs. It made me nervous at first, but Byron and I talked and talked about it over and over again. We both agreed this was an opportunity to stand up for what was right. To take this chance to help make a difference in any way that we could.”

Martinez continued, “Because he and I are committed as a couple and we want to have the rights that come along with marriage equality. We truly believe in that and we won’t settle for anything less. We love each other so much and we want to take care of each other in every way that we can. so that’s why we stuck it out for the four years the lawsuit took it’s course. It just wrapped up the beginning of last year, when we were denied appellate level.”

The last part, of the first quote is often overlooked (by those not involved) by the LGBT community. Martinez and Beck, among others saw it as an opportunity to stand up for what was right. For four long years their lives were engulfed in this case. Though they were lead plaintiffs Martinez and Beck were not alone, the other plaintiffs included: Dan O’Neil, Steven Kenison, Rupert Kinnard, Scott Stapley, Marc Acito, Christina Caravaca, Sandra Naranjo, Michelle Snyder, Heidi Thorstad, Diane Groff, Liz Cahill, Tim Smith, Kebt Kullby, Kelley Burke, Dolores Doyle, Daniel E.H. Bryant and Glenna Shepard.

Beck used his best tool, journalism, to give the Oregonian a wake-up call when they wrote in their editorial that (paraphrasing), the last thing Oregon needs is another battle over same sex marriage (meaning the Martinez vs. Kulongoski case.) Beck was at Willamette Week during this time and replied to them in his Queer Window column:

“A small item about the arguments was buried in the “Around the Region” section. But it was the O’s editorial board warning Basic Rights Oregon it “should be careful what it wishes for” that made me angry. Although the unsigned piece said, “Editorial pages are not in the business of telling judges how to interpret the law,” it went on to say we have no business going against the will of the voter. And if we were to overturn Measure 36, on what they see as a “technicality,” our opponents would mount another “bitter” campaign and defeat us by an even larger margin. In other words, the editorial board believes we should settle for less, rather than alienate fellow Oregonians,” he wrote.

Concluding he stated, “I ask you, did that kind of crap work for civil-rights workers in the South, women who wanted the vote or those radical American Revolutionaries? “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue,” said Barry Goldwater, an old fart if there ever was one.

The Oregonian’s board of white, well-to-do (and nearly all married) nay-sayers doesn’t have a clue when it comes to knowing what is good for gays or any other minority. I’m not going to even get into the argument that they’d never dare say this to another minority. I’m just going to clarify the facts. The main arguments in this case, that Measure 36 is so sweeping as to be a “revision” and that it altered more than one part of the state constitution, are not technicalities; they’re based on the fundamental principle that no one’s rights can be taken out of the constitution by the voters. Furthermore, if we win, there will be no more ballot measures like Measure 36. Period. End of discussion. That’s all, folks. I know the editorial board is pushing for civil unions, but Juan and I want to get married. No one should deny us our constitutional right.”

Oddly enough, people in our community don’t know about this battle, nor do they know it took four years, only to get denied by the Supreme Court. These people sacrificed their lives, personal and business, and had to deal with the stress and obstacles that the case bore onto them. Without this case, we would not be where we are today. We would not have known that a court won’t work for us, and BRO’s new strategy may have not been a reality. Now we know, and finally we can be n our way to put this to bed, for good. We owe them a thanks of gratitude, and though many have already done so in the past, we should thank them again regardless.

Thank you for doing the hard work necessary for our community’s battle for marriage equality. We can’t imagine what those four years were like for you all, but we do know it must have taken a toll. Thank you for being courageous and expecting nothing less than marriage equality.

id Magazine: How did you two meet?

Jeff: At a bar! We were introduced by someone we both dated…at the Brig. 20 years ago…in February. Our mutual friend Jim introduced us, he (Ed) was with a friend of his who was dragging him off to a party and I was with some other friends. I turned around to a friend of mine and said, “I just met the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” My friend said, “Oh yeah, right! What’s his name?” And I couldn’t remember his name. So my friends and I would go searching for him, the guy that introduced us left for Europe, so I couldn’t ask him. Every weekend my friends would call and say, “Would you like to look for the cute boy?” and so we would. We never found him.

So Ed, you had a stalker?

Jeff: See! Yes, he tells people that, “I had a stalker.” Later I learned that he would see us in the bars and then just disappear.

Ah…Mysterious…

Ed: I was dating somebody else.

Jeff: But why would you disappear? One night I went to Don Horn’s very first play by myself. I couldn’t get anyone to go with me to this play. I had never met Don before and I walked in and there was this tall tan guy selling tickets, it was right before the show. I bought my ticket, it was packed, scooted in. The tall tan guy came in with this group of women, came up and said, “You! You, the guy who came here by himself – could you move to the single seat in the front row so these women could sit together?” I was totally mortified that I was any place by myself…

Ed: And everybody knew.

Jeff: And everybody knew…”Oh look at the poor guy who can’t get a date!” During the play, the rotating light that was the fire in the fireplace on stage, came off, rolled off the stage and landed between my legs, spinning around like a hubcap, making that noise…I thought, “This is not my night, I shouldn’t have even left the house.” As soon as the lights came on, I got out and was in the car and thought, “I could go to a bar tonight by myself,” which I would never do. I walked into Boxx’s and there he was…and I thought, “Oh what is his name! It’s one syllable, what is it?” Before I knew it, he was right behind and I turned around and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.” He said, “That’s o.k. Jeff, my name’s Ed.”

Ed: Meanwhile, I was delighted I remembered his name…

Jeff: He gave me an invitation to his birthday party that weekend. It had his name, phone number and address! And it was a PITY Invitation! He thought I had seen him handing out invitations to other people. But I didn’t know that. So I get home that night and I wake up all my neighbors to tell them, “I found the cute boy!” and I had an invitation to his birthday party. When I went to the party, the first person I meet is his boyfriend. It’s like, how long do you stay at a party you don’t want to be at? So I thought, I’ll have one beer, I wished him a happy birthday, and I walk into the kitchen to get a beer and Don Horn is standing there. It was like these weird worlds coming together. Just as I left, Ed said, “We should get together and do something sometime.” The boyfriend moved to Hungary. And that was 20 years ago.

We’d been together fourteen years before getting married was an option. We never talked seriously about doing it.

That was my next question – did you discuss what marriage would be like, the benefits etc?

Jeff: Well there would be definite benefits, but I was already recognized as a domestic partner with his law firm. For a firm from conservative Florida, they had really good domestic partner benefits. So that was not an issue. And being married was never really a possibility at that point.

Ed: And I’m not big into formal ceremonies at all. So to do it just for the ceremony sake, I wasn’t interested.

Jeff: But it was odd…we were watching that Gavin Newsom announced that same sex couples could get married in San Francisco…we were watching that on the news on Valentine’s day. I think you said, “If they do that here, I think I’d like to do it.” It was just out of the blue…and I said, “Yeah…me too.”

Then the weirdest thing was when they announced it here in Portland, I started getting these e-mails from friends saying, “It looks like this is going to happen.” I remember getting an e-mail that had been forwarded from Serena Cruz, hinting that it was going to happen. So it happened and I called Ed (laughing…)

And he’s like, “So, you wanna do it?” that was his fancy marriage proposal! “So you wanna do it?”

How in the world did you plan a wedding in four days?

Jeff: He did it! I was gone.

Ed: With the help of a lot of friends.

Jeff: Yeah, we went and got our license the next day in the horrible rain. Everybody was soaked, but it was festive, it was a really festive atmosphere. Ran into lots of friends of ours there, Don Horn and Jeff were there. Just a lot of other couples that we have known that had been together for a long time. So we got our license, he went back to work. I went home to pack to go to Cedar Rapids, Iowa the next day to speak at a conference. He planned everything.

When we ran into Don Horn, we said, “Can we get married in the theater?” because he had “Theater, Theater” at the time. We knew we needed a place were everything would be set up all ready, there’d be chairs, everything just available. And people in line were saying, “If you’re going to do it, you should do it fast, because we don’t know how long this is going to last.” I talked to Don outside the county building, and he said, “How about Sunday afternoon?” So I was gone the next two days.

Ed planned everything…I was getting e-mails saying, “Got the cake…” etc, and all of a sudden it was like, “Oh my God this is really a wedding!” Trying to get a hold of everybody possible. A lot of our friends couldn’t be there because it was so quick, but they understood, if we were going to do it, we needed to do it quick.

I was speaking at the Creative Conference, in Waterloo, Iowa. I told the organizers what was going on and how important this was, and they said, “We’ll get you out of here as soon as you’re done speaking.” They literally had a limo waiting to take me to the airport. But, all the flights were cancelled.

I got to the American Eagle desk and asked the gal there, “Are you serious? All flights are canceled?” She replied, “Yeah…this a huge storm and it has screwed up everything.” I said to her, “I’m getting married this weekend.”

She picked up the phone and she said, “There is one plane that hasn’t left the jet way yet. Start running!” So I’m running down to the gate and I hear over the intercom system, “Jeff Fisher, stop right where you are!” She comes running down to meet me, papers in hand and says, “I’ve got you booked on every flight out of Chicago to Portland!” Three different airlines. I looked at the boarding pass and it wasn’t even mine, it was some woman’s. She told me, “go to the first airline that has a flight out.” I get to Chicago and I go to United’s gate. The guy I go to, is “family” and I say, “I’m getting married this weekend, I need to get on this flight.” he says, “I’ll get you on this flight!”

He calls down to the plane and tells them there’s three more people coming on board and unlocks the jet way. As we’re standing there, the jet way starts to pull away! Someone didn’t get the message. The guy said, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I can’t get you on first-class, but I can get you in the seat right behind first-class.”

We get on the plane, and two guys come down the isle and say to each other, “I think we’re on the gay wedding shuttle to Portland!” There were all these gay couples. I got home and the next morning was just insane trying to get everything done. Ed had picked out the rings and said, “If you don’t like them we can pick out something else.” I said, “No, this is perfect.” Everything was perfect. We went down to Twist to get champagne glasses, and they told us they had a very busy week with wedding gifts and wedding stuff.

See…that’s the key right there. Talk to all the businesses and show them with facts how great this is for business. You could register at Target!

Jeff: Yes. That’s been the case wherever they have done it. It’s made a huge economic impact in travel, hotels, bed and breakfast, and…everything.

I think one of the things we’ve always told our friends is that having a wedding defines so much in your life that you’re not prepared to have defined.

Because, sh*t happens, it’s bizarre I have had no contact with my parents since our wedding day. Well, no contact with my dad…I’ve had limited contact with my mother. My parents have been incredibly supportive of our relationship for 14 years. At least…that’s what we thought.

When we had been together for 10 years, they basically hosted a party for us. My mom prepared the food, my dad helped with everything. My brother and his wife have always been very supportive, we thought. It was really strange.

I asked Ed, “So when are my parents getting into town?” because he had contact with everybody, I’d been gone. He says, “It’s really weird, I haven’t heard from them.” I thought, this is strange…I picked up the phone and called my parents, my mom answered the phone. I said, “When are you getting into town?” She said, “We’re not.” I said, “Why aren’t you coming?” She replied, “Well your father won’t let me.” I said, “Put dad on the phone for me.” She said, “No, he doesn’t want to talk to you about it.” “Well, tell him to call me when he is ready to talk about it,” I said. It’s been six years.

Then we didn’t hear from my brother and his wife, I didn’t know what that was about. My sister said she wasn’t going to be able to fly up from San Francisco on such short notice. Then that morning, when we were at the theater, I saw somebody walk in through the front door. I couldn’t see who it was but I then realized it looked like Sue, my sister. She had surprised us! Her boyfriend told her, “You have to go.” So she did.

We had a great ceremony, really a lot of fun. About 60 people. Our friends Tim and Kristin officiated it. Their daughter and another friend’s daughter were the ring bearer princesses, with tiaras that we found at Target. The reception was a potluck reception that was fantastic! Everybody brought amazing food. Pat Di Prima from Di Prima Dolce made the cake, a beautiful wedding cake for us. We just had a great time, it was really, really a great time!

(To Ed) And your parents?

Jeff: His parents were there.

Ed: My dad showed up, I didn’t expect my parents to show up.

Jeff: What happened was the reverse of what we expected to happen. Ed’s grandmother wasn’t there but she talked to him about it. It was difficult for her to deal with. But at least she talked to him about it. She’s always been very supportive of us otherwise. It was just that it was a very personal thing to her, and she didn’t feel she could be there, for her own personal reasons. But it didn’t impact our relationship with her at all.

Then Ed gets a call from my brother’s wife at work, wasn’t it? You got a call from Gina, right? (Ed nods yes) She said “they were sorry they weren’t there, but…” didn’t she also say Jerry wouldn’t let her? (Ed nods yes again.) Jerry’s argument…one of the dumbest things I’ve heard…if gay men could wear wedding rings, it devalued his marriage! Isn’t that bizarre?

Fisher's second book, Identity Crisis!

Jeff: Right…like there’s not single people out there wearing wedding rings…it was the weirdest argument I ever heard, and we’ve not spoken to them ever since. So, you don’t know how people are going to react…we had people show up that we didn’t expect to show. Some of our dearest friends were there, one of them…they go to a really conservative church and I think she was a deaconess of the church at the time and had to ask permission to come to our wedding. But they were there.

You just never know. We’ve told this to other people that are going to have commitment ceremonies or weddings, “Be prepared for anything!” And they say, “Oh no, everything is going to be great!” (laughter) It really does define who will support you no matter what…which is kind of nice. For the people that couldn’t be at the wedding, we had a great big reception a couple of months later up at Joy Creek Nursery. So people had a lot of time to make arrangements to be there.

How did you mentally prepare for the possibility that the marriage could be revoked?

Jeff: We weren’t prepared. It was really upsetting when it was overturned. We knew it was a possibility, but we weren’t prepared.

Ed: We really thought that if anything were to change that our marriage would still remain intact. That they wouldn’t undo what had been done.

Jeff: Like what happened in California.

Ed: It was pretty upsetting. Made me mad…

In a way that’s a good thing. I remember in 2004, the day after 36 passed, one of my neighbors just stayed in bed for 24 to 48 hours…it just devastated him that much.

Jeff: It really was devastating, because you’re given the incredible opportunity to really…I don’t know…make your relationship legal and get to do it in front of the people that are closest to you. Then you have the rug ripped out from under you…it’s really bizarre. When it happens elsewhere, I know what those people are going through.

Ed: It just brings out the “F•@k you” in me…(laughter)

Jeff: Another thing that was nice is that his office at the time threw a reception for us. Which was really wonderful. Again, not everyone at the law firm was thrilled about that.

Ed: Not everyone was supportive. The interesting thing is that one of the people who wasn’t supportive, primarily because the “M” word was used? They were at our house last night for dinner. And their children were flabbergasted that she wasn’t supportive. Which was pretty cool. I think now…her point of view would be different.

Jeff: It’ll be interesting to see what happens if this goes on the ballot again, to see how people’s attitudes have changed.

Yes, and there is a lot of work to be done up to that point.

Jeff: Oh yes…a lot of work to be done. I think people have to get over the religion thing. I think it’s odd in a country that’s supposedly separation of church and state, church and state is what defines marriage now, and it shouldn’t. It really should be like the situation in France. Where all unions are civil unions, the marriage is a separate ceremony that is in a church or wherever you want to have it. Keeping things totally separate.

But are the civil unions, do they cover everything that marriage covers?

Jeff: They do – they do cover everything.

Can you tell me an instance or event in your life together where marriage would have been beneficial, but because you don’t have it, you felt short-changed or discriminated against?

Ed: No, but I’m sort of blind to that now. Unless it’s blatantly obvious, I’m not looking for it. I’ve operated under that…for so many years I operated under that, “Well, I’m not treated the same as straight people,” so I’m oblivious to a lot of it. And I don’t want to focus on the negative pieces, that’s not my nature. I’d much rather look for the positive in whatever the situation is, so…don’t focus on the have not’s and focus on the haves.

Jeff: We’ve also been really lucky. In the whole time we’ve been together, you’ve worked for a really good employer that were either at the forefront of it or they just understand domestic partnerships. The one company he worked for, they were named on the best companies to work for in America for gay and lesbian employees. That really makes a difference.

Ed: I’m in a white-collar profession, so, there’s a lot more acceptance in the white-collar than the blue-collar professions.

Jeff: And I’m a really good corporate wife! (laughter) I’ve been complimented on that several times!

There’s not negatives in that sense, I’ve protected myself from having anything like that happening to me personally, because in 1985 I was fired from a job for being gay. So I think I’m very aware of not getting myself into situations where it’s going to be an issue. I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve been openly gay in my work. If somebody doesn’t want to work with me, they don’t have to. What has happened instead is that people have worked with me because of it. I get e-mails like, “I’ve been looking at your work and my brother sings in the Gay Men’s Chorus…” – you know, it’s an introduction and the ones that would have an issue with it just don’t contact me at all, which is fine.

Civil unions, especially in Oregon are not equal to marriage. A guess is that 1,000 privileges and rights are covered in civil unions, and 2,000 plus are covered with marriage.

Jeff: If anything, we’ve had to go through more legal protection issues to make sure things are covered.

Ed: You mean that and some of the stuff we haven’t done yet? (laughter)

Jeff: Right! Some of the stuff we haven’t done yet. I remember during the major part of the AIDS crisis, hearing nightmare stories of families coming in, when one partner had died, and just taking everything. You want to make sure that doesn’t happen.
There are times we have to explain that we’re a couple, they just don’t get it. People do a double take sometimes, when we’re traveling, they don’t understand…I do kind of get a thrill out of introducing Ed as my husband. Especially if it’s going to tweak someone!

Ed: You know…I still like partner better than husband.

Jeff: Doesn’t matter to me…When are you getting married? (more laughter)

After it becomes legal we’ll talk about it. Let’s see, we’ve already covered the religious aspect of the argument.

Jeff: That really bugs me. I don’t understand that argument of same sex marriage devaluing or threatening anyone else’s marriage. The “Sanctity of Marriage” doesn’t work for me at all, with the people who are making the most noise about that.

Yes, the adulterers, and what have you. It’s interesting in all the research we’ve done for this subject…prison inmates, people on death row can get married.

Jeff: Yes – a felon has all their rights taken away, that can’t vote, they can’t do certain things, but they can still get married. To those wacko women who write them!

Are either of you active in the equal rights fight?

Jeff: I’m really good at opening my mouth and getting myself in trouble. You’re kind of being an openly gay business person (referring to Ed.)

Ed: I’m shy away from really public activity. I’m just not…I’m a back office kind of person. I don’t like to be out in front.

More of a producer than a star! (pointing at Jeff when I say star.) (More laughter)

Jeff: But he did head the diversity committee at his old firm. Which was a very interesting thing to be bringing speakers in on a wide variety of topics; to people that have never been exposed to that before. It’d probably be something good to do at your firm now.

Ed: In time.

Jeff: Well, yeah, but I mean the education process is important. The great thing about the firm that he’s at now, is that I had worked with that firm beginning in 1994 doing their design stuff. He went in to do his interview and he said, “I think you know my partner Jeff Fisher.” I knew the major partners of the firm, so they knew what they were getting into.

I know we’re nowhere near typical, but what is a typical day at your home?

Ed: I get up and I hear from the bedroom, “Bitch! Where’s my coffee?” (Laughter)

Jeff: Is there a typical day?

Ed: Yeah… I get up and make the first cup of coffee…(more laughter) No seriously! I get my first cup of coffee, the T.V. is on, I go upstairs and check my e-mail, and do a little bit of work.

Jeff: he’s getting out of the shower, I’m making the second cup of coffee, I kiss him and say, “Honey, have a great day at work!” You know, that’s what’s so funny. Our life is so normal…

Ed: Except for some choices of words!

Oh, I think that’s more normal than you think!

Jeff: We’re really just a more animated version of the Cleavers. I think that surprises people that our life is so normal. We have gay friends that think it’s weird that we have so many
straight friends.

Delisse Oritz, right, Liz Tuttle, left

id magazine: Let’s start out by giving us a bit about your background, what you do professionally and how you met.

Delisse: I was studying at Washington State University for my doctorate in Environmental Science and Natural Resources – that’s where I was when I met Liz and I was there until last summer when I graduated to fellowship with National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. It’s the Marine Policy Fellowship… I wanted to learn about the policy, I had six and seven years learning about the biology and ecology of commercially imported fish, and I wanted to learn more about the policy aspects so I applied for the scholarship and I got it. I start in a week.

During that time, I met Liz and I’ll let her explain what she was doing at Washington State University.

Liz: I’m from Washington State, the Seattle area. I lived on and off in Portland since 1997-98, the Portland-Vancouver area. I lived there for a while. I first went there to work at the climatology lab at Washington State University. I moved back to Seattle
to get my masters in Enviroment and Community. I started working for the parks service and at that point, I would spend my summers working in one park or another, Olympic or Mt. Rainier, and I’d spend my winters in Portland or Vancouver working sometimes for several years in the same climatology lab. Until they ran out of funding, I’d do whatever work I could find in the winter.

During one of the years working at the lab is when I met Delisse. So that kept me coming back to Portland andVancouver.

And she got this fellowship in Washington D.C. and I’m working on getting my degree in nursing from Georgetown.

I would think nursing would be pretty good job security.

Liz:Yes, it is, although it’s a little tricky in the current climate, and it will give me more flexibility with work. Her job is the more questionable one, where she’ll be able to find work. So this gives me the flexibility to find where I can.

Where did you two meet?

Liz:The science department of Washington State University…it’s not a huge university, it’s one floor of one building. I was working in the climatology lab and she was down the hall, in the biology lab doing her internship.We’d pass in the hall for several months before we actually talked to each other (Delisse laughs)

Delisse: She was very shy and I just took it as,“Oh she’s not interested, whatever.” I asked her to a movie and the movie turned into um…everything! And we made it work. For my PHD my fieldwork was in Hawaii, on the big island from like May until August.That was some of the time that Liz spent in the national park, so we’d be separated, and when I’d come back, I’d go visit her wherever she was.Then later, she would come home around September or October. She would come visit me in Hawaii.

Liz: This is our first experiment in living together, living in the same place for an entire year.

Delisse: Very exciting!

When did you decide to get married?

Liz:The Multnomah marriage thing was early on in our relationship, so we weren’t thinking that big. But we did watch the election closely and were very hopeful. It was two and half years ago that we decided, well I proposed and we decided to have a ceremony, regardless of what we could do.We were actually living in Washington on the Washington side so we registered as domestic partners there.

I happened to be working down inYosemite for the summer during that brief period of time when the Prop 8 was voted on and was legal.When Delisse came down to visit, we headed to San Francisco and got married there. It just happened to coincide with the celebration we were planning in Portland that November.

Delisse:Yeah, it was like I was flying over and she said,“Well, do you just want to go to San Francisco?” I said,“O.K.! Is it legal?” – Before all hell broke loose, before November. I did my masters at San Francisco State and some friends, they came over and we went to city hall and had a ceremony. Actually, I should say we got married in San Francisco and had the ceremony in Portland.

I have been asking couples how they mentally prepared for the possibility that Measure 36 would take their marriage away, but you didn’t go through that.

Liz:Well, we still didn’t know what would happen with Prop 8.We’re still hopeful that the court case will come out the right way. Now in D.C. our marriage is recognized. Hopefully everyone, if all goes well, everyone can start getting married in March.

Do you think that marriage equality is a human rights issue rather than a religious issue?

Liz: I do.There are certain aspects of marriage that may be very religious for people, but I think, fundamentally that it is a human right and that what is recognized by the church is something separate from what should be available to everyone.

Delisse: Every human being, it’s a human right.

Liz: If they wanted to give everyone the option to have just civil unions and assign marriage to the church…as long as everybody has the same option I don’t have a problem with it. If marriage was just a church recognized thing, like getting confirmed or something. But if you make it a state right, it’s got to be available for everyone.

Fortunately with Basic Rights Oregon (BRO) we have the campaign already started with MarriageMattersOregon.org, to have as many conversations as possible with everyone around the state. Approaching it as a human rights issue as opposed to a skewed religious issue will be effective. This way, having the vote in 2012, we control the message and issue rather than our opponents having the control.

Liz: Hopefully that approach will work. It would be great for us to have the control and not let it be skewed as it is every time by what people watch, that’s good to hear. It’s just appalls me every time. Like the election we had up in Washington that approved all the rights that the Washington legislature had approved for the expansion of domestic partnership.

Delisse: Everything but marriage.

Liz: It was crazy…there were some crazy things, like commercials on the radio that tried to gay marriage to terrorism. It was like,“Why are we worried about this when there’s more important things to be doing? Why are we voting on this? It’s not important, we should be focused on terrorism.” It was a weak attempt to link things that should not at all be linked.
Have you experienced any difficulties, where you’ve come across something where marriage would have been beneficial, and you didn’t have it? Liz: I don’t think so. Although figuring out how to fill out forms has been crazy. I’m going back to school, filling out my federal aid form, what are we going to do in D.C. now that it’s recognized, am I married or single? It’s more confusing than that any actual harm has come from the lack of marriage. Fortunately neither of us has been in the hospital, so we haven’t experienced visiting rights.The taxation issue isn’t a factor yet.

Delisse:The biggest benefit is more our ceremony than our legal marriage.You know, just having the support of our families and for that recognition. Couples can be around for a very long time. I felt that with the ceremony and the marriage in California, even though it’s only recognized in certain states it was beneficial.

The emotional side that has been…

Liz: Bringing the families totally on board, and friends…I think people walked away from coming to our wedding with a totally new way of looking at marriage. Her family, the people who weren’t as open to the relationship, it really opened their minds instantly. Even though it wasn’t a legal thing…so it’s not really the legal side…the process made everything seem more legitimate.

That’s wonderful!

Liz:And it was a great excuse, we just wanted to have a party! (laughter)

Are either of you active in the political side of LGBT community?

Liz: Not yet here…my brother, he lives here and has some connections, so we hope to become more active. Especially healthcare…

Delisse: We’re members of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) so we definitely plan to get more involved, especially here in D.C. I mean this is the place.That was one of the things that made me very excited about it. Out of all the options that we had because I was applying for several jobs and looking at the good schools, coming to D.C. was one of the many options. One of things I looked at other than track record is their international community and they care about the issues we’re passionate about.

Our last question is: Take me through a day at your house, I don’t want to say typical because we’re not typical! (laughter)

Delisse:Typical day…that’s the thing! We don’t have a typical day.

Liz:Yeah we’re just all over the place…

Delisse: Some days it would be waking up in Hawaii, giving her a call to see how she’s doing, and then waiting like four days until she got out of the back country to talk to her…Um.

Liz:We could do a day, like right now.

Delisse: O.K. a typical week this week…let’s see…She’s in school so she’s in Georgetown, we get up early, I’ll help her pack her lunch. She just got shoulder surgery so she has one arm, so I make her lunch and make sure she’s not using her right arm…and we say goodbye. She’ll spend the rest of the day in classes until about five, and I’ll spend the rest of the day running errands and trying to make our home here in D.C. Depending on the day of the week, sometimes we’ll meet for dinner. Or we’re taking a French class once a week, so we’ll have dinner and go to our French class.Then come home and make some yummy dinner…if we haven’t already eaten.Then watch a little T.V. and go to bed.

Liz:That will all change next week…

Delisse:And it’ll all change next week because I start my job. I’ll be going to work and she’ll be going to school.

Liz:Then that’ll be pretty standard for a while.

Delisse, what are you doing at your new job?

Delisse: It’s called the NAUSS fellowship. It’s through the National Sea Grant Office. It’s an opportunity for graduates to learn more about marine biology.You get assigned to work for an office with NOA, and I’ll be working specifically with the National Marine Fishery Service, Office of Sustainable Fisheries. Specifically learning how to manage highly migratory species, which are tuna, shark, swordfish and blowfish in the Atlantic.

I bet that’ll be exciting work!

Delisse:Yeah it’s super…it’s very different from what I had been doing, so I’m very excited.They don’t exactly have a task, you get assigned for the first few weeks, and that’s as far as I know on what I’ll be doing for the next year.

Well, thank you both! Appreciate we you taking the time.

Liz:Thank you for doing this, hopefully people will read the stories and shed light on it

id Magagazine: Tell me a little bit of background about both of you, what’s your profession, how did you meet…

Rich: I work for Jazzercise in sales, and I own two stores here, one in Portland and one in Gresham.

Really? Are you the one with the commercial on T.V.?

Rich: Yep – That campaign ended yesterday unfortunately.That keeps me very busy, and I work out of my house mostly unless I’m at one of my centers. Kevin’s a veterinarian.

Kevin: Right…I’m a small animal veterinarian in Tigard. I commute.

Small animals as in?

Kevin: Dogs and cats mostly, sometimes rabbits and ferrets – 99% dogs and cats. It’s a small practice; there are three full time doctors, two part time doctors.
And we met on the Internet, actually.

Really?

Rick: Match.com (they both laugh)

Now I get confused with those services, because…I think it was E-Harmony was anti-gay?

Rick:They were.When we were using those services, E-Harmony would not accept same-sex categories. So we had to go on Match.com.You fill out your profile, it’s like writing a personals ad for your self, you put a few pictures up…it’s like shopping online for men! (laughs) It’s great, you save time; you kind of look at people, send a message and see if they have any interest.

I imagine that takes away the stereotypical-stigma that sites like Gay.com has. Like Gay.com is known for being the place to go if you want to hook-up for sex.

Rich:Yes, most of the gay exclusive ones are about sex, I’ve heard, but I haven’t personally experienced them. But yeah…Match.com is the place to go when you want to meet someone or you want to meet friends, stuff like that. It worked really well for us. A few of my friends were on it at the same time and we know two other couples that have gotten married from it.

Kevin: Straight couples. Rich: He almost didn’t call me back though…(laughter)

Oh really? Tell me about that!

Kevin:What was it? You winked at me, or whatever?

Rich:Yeah, I was the one that made the first contact.

Kevin: And I didn’t respond.

Rich: But then he e-mailed back…and we e-mailed a couple of times. It was down to like,“O.K. – I’m going to e-mail this guy one more time, this is his last chance; he’s obviously not interested.” (laughter)Then he e-mailed me back and we went out on a date. He was number three that week, I had three dates that week. He was number three…he was Thursday. (laughter) I was determined!

(Laughing) Something to tell the grandkids about!

Rich:We went out on aThursday night to Crush. And we just had drinks and it has a fun atmosphere, close to his house. In the back of my car, for my business, we do a fundraiser every year for an animal shelter and it was Christmas time. So people bring cash donations, food for pets.We get a list of all the supplies they need and I collect all that and take it out to the shelter.

My car was filled in the back, I have an SUV, the seats were folded down, and it was filled with dog supplies, cat supplies. When Kevin gets in the car, we didn’t even know what each other did, because the categories were like, mine was “Professional Sales” and his was like,“Medical, Dental.” So he says, “Well I’m a Vet,” and I kind of laughed it off, because I had explained why that stuff was in my car. So when he said that, I’m like, ”Oh yeah right! Ha-Ha-ha!” I didn’t believe him.

That was three years ago?

Kevin:Three years ago in December.

When did you get married?

Rich:August of 2009.

Do you think that marriage equality is a human rights issue or more so a religious issue?

Rich: It is for me.

Kevin: It is for me too.

Why does marriage matter to you?

Rich: I think the equality issue matters to me, just having the same rights…because I have been discriminated against because of my sexual preference. On jobs, advancement, career positions…like not getting positions, things like that. I think this brings us another step closer to having equal rights. I’m not a really religious person in the traditional sense.We have our own beliefs and our own feelings and what we follow. My church told me to go to hell, so why bother?

Kevin: Yes, my church did too.

Rich:We really don’t do it for religious reasons; it’s more for financial reasons, the equality reasons.

Kevin: Being able to visit each other or make decisions if one of us was to get sick.And not have to be worried that they can deny us visitation just because we’re not married and living in the same house.Those things…neither of our families lives close, mine live closer than his does, but if something were to happen…do you want to have to wait for one of them to make a decision on that. Do they know what the right decision is?

Both of your families are supportive?

Rich:Yes. It took them a while to come around and understand it. Maybe they still don’t understand it, but they’re supportive. Because now they can put a face with who I’m living with and who I’m seeing and he’s in my life. Before, my family lives in Ohio so they really can’t come out and visit; so they didn’t really know who was in my life – they’d hear me talk about certain people. But know they know Kevin and they love Kevin, he’s normal, he’s not some weird freak. (Kevin laughs)

It’s easier for them to accept it, although I don’t know if they still quite understand it. My mother’s 85, she thinks denial is the best way to deal with everything. My dad passed away about 15 years ago, so I didn’t have to deal with it with him.

Kevin: My family’s very religious, my parents are, not my siblings so much. I think it was, like Rich said, initially they didn’t like what I was. But when they put a face to it and saw what we meant to each other, I think that changes a lot of perceptions.

Rich: I was the first person he had taken home.

Kevin:Yeah, they’d never met anybody that I’ve ever dated. I lived and grew up in a small town, not to say anything about small towns, but it was 3,000 people. So you know everybody in the town.There was that whole…I think they were embarrassed.

Rich: Everybody’s business…

Kevin:Yes…what are the neighbors going to think, what are the people at church going to think. I think that they just realized that it doesn’t matter what other people think. I think they’ve grown in that sense, is that they don’t care…maybe they do, but we go to church when we go home. I don’t know if my mom and dad introduced us as husbands, but they don’t ask us to keep it quite.

For the wedding…I read that it was important for you to have the environmental aspect to it?

Rich: Yes. I have an electric car and then I have another car that is a hybrid. It didn’t really become that important to me until I moved out West. Because the Mid-West, and Ohio? It’s not where you go to see nature. I’ve lived in California and in Oregon, so I’ve really realized how beautiful everything is and that we should protect it.That part was important to us, to give back to the environment.We’re established, we make good money; we didn’t need any gifts.We asked people to donate to causes for animals or the environment, in our names. It was good to give back in that way.

Kevin: And I love the outdoors, I grew up on a 1,000 acres on a cattle ranch.The closest house was four miles away. I’ve spent most of my life outdoors.And we see the encroachment of people moving in and taking over farms, and now they’re small ranchettes. When you see it taken away, it hits home. So we wanted to do something like that.

Rich: We got the idea about the trees from his sister; she was married the year before.That was the party favor, in the middle of the table.We bought all these trees that people could go home and plant.

That’s great!

Rich: Yeah. His dad dabbles in Christmas tree farming so we had all the resources to get us all the trees we needed.

Did you plan the wedding yourselves or did you have help?

Rich: We did with Rosemary’s help. (Rosemary Ragusa) She was our photographer and she wanted to dabble in wedding planning, so she gave us a lot of suggestions and helped us out with bands, food and all that.

Kevin really loves Timberline Lodge, so that’s why we had it there. I would have preferred to go to Sun River or someplace…the Sun River Lodge is really nice. But it is just so remote, so for logistical purposes, we had a lot of people coming in from out of state.

Kevin: Most of our guests, over half of them coming in…

Rich:About 60%came from out of state.

Kevin:Trying to get them all into Sun River…

Rich: A lot of them don’t do small planes; they would have had to drive five hours, which just didn’t work.

We had the wedding on a Sunday, so they had to take the next day off of work, which was strictly financial because it was half price. Friday and Saturday night is double and the wedding ended up costing $20,000… so, double that for just a Saturday night? I told Kevin,“Let’s just have it on Sunday and anyone that wants to be there can be there.”
It really turned into this BIG wedding. I just wanted to have a party; you know and just have us. Like the ceremony, it was very short and tasteful; we didn’t drag it out for very long. It was fun.

Kevin:We didn’t have groomsmen.

Rich: It was just him and me, we both walked our mothers down, sat them down and we went up to the front…and it was amazingly emotional, much more emotional than I thought it would be.We could barely stop…we had to think of each other doing stupid things so we wouldn’t cry all the time… We had my friend Jan, I asked her to write a little speech about the path that we have taken as gay people, and obtaining equal rights and about marriages. So she started with all the ways you can define marriage, what it used to be about years and years ago.What it was like in the 50’s. It was kind of a way to educate our families.

That, you know, everybody doesn’t have this right.We don’t right now, we’re not really married, because we can’t. But, we’re doing this.That was our way to try and educate them about the situation.

That’s wonderful! Fortunately, there will be conversations like that across the state. Basic rights Oregon (BRO) launched a website MarriageMattersOregon.com where people can upload video snapshots of why marriage matters to our community and beyond. What will really win the hearts and minds of voters outside of Portland is one-on-one conversations with people in every county.

Kevin: Unfortunately, it’s the people on the eastern side of the state that you have to change their minds. Portland, Salem, I think the majority of people are o.k. with it.The Eastern side of the state where the farmers are at, they only see things on T.V. I’m sure they know people, but they can’t put a face to it. It’s like my family,‘We know it’s out there, and it must be something dirty’ – as soon as you put a face to it, you can’t deny us, and you can’t say there’s anything wrong with us.

Exactly. Take me through a day at your house.

Kevin: I’m up first; at 5:30am because I ride the bus, catch the bus at 6:30am. I have a Kindle, so I just read, it’s an hour commute. Most days when I’m up, he’s still asleep.

Rich: My commute is…I walk downstairs, get some coffee, go back upstairs and go to my office.Answer e-mails, do some office work, about 10am I take a shower and then keep working in my office. On the days that I teach, when I go to my centers, like today was one of them. I taught at 8:15 am at the Gresham center.Then I’ll come back and work in the office in the afternoon.Then I’ll go teach again at 4:45 pm in Portland, it keeps my hand in the business.

Which is a great business strategy.

Rich:Yes, I’ve been doing this a long time, so I’m a big draw, so it brings the people in.That’s why we couldn’t meet with you yesterday. yesterday was our big one day sale, so I was at the center most of the day, selling special membership packages on that one day.We did pretty well.

That was the whole television campaign leading up to that.

To be honest, when I saw that commercial I thought, “Huh…Jazzercise still around?”

Rich: (Laughs) Yeah – that’s what a lot of people think!

Yet, it’s very different form the Jane Fonda, leg- warmer days, right?

Rich:Yes, and that’s where we got most of our press, back in the 80’s. It’s still around and the company is doing better now than it did back then.We’re always trying to update that image, because as you know, anything that’s been around that long wouldn’t
be around if it were the same.You always have to update your product or your image. If we still wore the leg warmers, we wouldn’t be very credible in this world. (laughter)

Although I saw Richard Simmons the other day… don’t know how he does it, but he’s still wearing those short-shorts and tank-top!

Rich:What was he hawking these days?

I don’t know, but he was on the Wendy Williams Show and she couldn’t keep control of him. I didn’t see a product, although they did talk about his studio. On Bonnie Hunt there wasn’t a product either. A couple of her staff members went to his studio and were surprised how worn out they were afterwards.

Rich: We did an event in Fairbanks,Alaska where he was the headliner. Jazzersize was there as well, we taught a class, but we warmed everybody up for him, you know? So I didn’t get to meet him because I didn’t get to go to that event.They said he was a hoot and very good, very entertaining.

You know as funny as he is, he does a lot of good for people, because he really cares about those people. He gets in that emotional side…and being overweight is a very emotional thing for so many people, especially women. So, he does a lot of good, even though people make fun of him. I just wish I could get him a new image consultant.

Well yeah, everybody sees the caricature.They don’t see… although I remember when he was doing those infomercials, and he got to that emotional, serious part.

Rich:Yes, yes he did.

Kevin: Also, as far as our day, we have two dogs and two cats, so they spend the day with him.They’re little.Three of them are rescues.We rescued two, and one he got from one of his students – one of the cats, and we went and bought one together.

I usually get home about 7:30pm, and we have dinner, spend some time with the animals.

Rich: (Shows me a photo of two of the dogs and one cat in little animal bed, all together) They all have to be with me all the time, so that’s them on the desk.

Awww…

Rich:This one is Kevin on his birthday (we laugh) I can send more of those if you like.

Thank you both for taking the time to tell your story. I think our readers will find some common threads running through yours and their lives.

Rich:Thank you for thinking of us!

In honor of our upcoming issue, “Gay Marriage…Where We’re Headed” we’d like to hear from you! Were you one of the 3,000 couples who obtained a Multnomah County same-sex marriage certificate during that glorious but brief time in 2004? If you are, we’d like to hear your story: The glory, the celebrations, and the eventual let down in November. We know it didn’t change how you felt about each other, but it did impact your life and ours.

So please take a moment and share your own story below, or a gay marriage story that touched you in some way. We’d also like to point you to Basic Rights Oregon’s website, Marriage Matters To Me. Help our state be come a leader in Marriage Equality by donating time or money…or make a video to upload!

In honor of our upcoming issue, “Gay Marriage…Where We’re Headed” we’d like to hear from you! Were you one of the 3,000 couples who obtained a Multnomah County same-sex marriage certificate during that glorious but brief time in 2004? If you are, we’d like to hear your story: The glory, the celebrations, and the eventual let down in November. We know it didn’t change how you felt about each other, but it did impact your life and ours.

So please take a moment and share your own story below, or a gay marriage story that touched you in some way. We’d also like to point you to Basic Rights Oregon’s website, Marriage Matters To Me. Help our state be come a leader in Marriage Equality by donating time or money…or make a video to upload!