Delisse Oritz and Liz Tuttle
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
