Thursday August 5^th

By Meg Sneed

Today we began the 3^rd Annual Right to Marry: Arizona Campaign. We gathered at Dolce Espresso with joy in our hearts and a sense of renewed hope after the ruling on Wednesday that Prop 8 is unconstitutional! 

As we hit the road to our first destination, Lake Havasu City, we take the energy and love from this decision with us on the road.  

For the next week we will walk across 98 miles across Northern Arizona seeking earnest discussion and cordial fellowship. The 98 miles is a representation of the number of years that Arizona has been a state without full equality for all citizens.

Our goal is to carefully and collectively examine the intersection wherein scripture and social norms meet gender and human sexuality. And more practically, we hope to share and gain insights about how related policies and doctrines impact the lives of everyone in a community. These conversations are undeniably essential in creating a safe environment for all citizens of Arizona.

Over the next week our feet will hit the pavement and we will be speaking with police officers, city managers, faith communities, elected officials and people in diverse districts.

During the 98 mile pilgrimage we will carry rainbow umbrellas, consume gallons of water, and get blisters on every part of our feet.

We will push our bodies, minds and spirits, but our hearts and faith in change will carry us through, and we will be able to change hearts and minds along the way.

As we begin this journey I know that we will not see the immediate impact of our conversations, but that like a stone in a pond we will cause a ripple effect of love and acceptance.

With each step we take we will plant seeds that will grow in others and will be harvested as our society comes to understand the value of affirming the loving, covenanted relationships of its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members.

As we made the trek across the desert tonight I looked around the van, I looked into the eyes of my fellow Equality Walkers as they told their stories and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I felt hope for tomorrow, and a sense of calm in my heart that the road for justice would reach our destination, full equality.

This is an amazing group of justice seekers, hearts and minds will be changed this week. Lives will be impacted, and the ten of us will never be the same.

 

Friday August 6th 

By Jimmy Gruender

 

Well I started early this morning had to go shopping for breakfast for the walkers, tries to get meg out of bed to help out,  however Tony went instead.  It was great to get some one on one time with Tony, and shopping is always fun.  Once we got back to the hotel Mandy came up and cooked breakfast,  then everyone came up to the room and we started training  It is the first time that I have been  facilitator for traing,  well me and Meg both where,  I have to say Meg makes everything a lot easier, for some reason we can just feed off each other,  it was almost like we had rehearsed everything.    I am truly blessed to have a such a great friend.  The training was nothing short of intense,  we started off with  by doing some excises on building your story.  I am so proud of all the walkers they where so honest,  and willing to talk about some very tough things.  If you have never been through this kind of training you cannot understand how tough and draining it can be.  Then we started the rest of the training including non violence Communication, discussions on marriage rights or the lack there of, how religion plays into the whole picture.  I just have to say, I can no see this walk is going to be a success,  the reason that I can say that is I have gotten a insight into how the walkers are going to interact  during the walk, and they will be amazing.  After that we went out to eat, we where all wearing our T-shirts that say do you believe in marriage I do,  are waitress asked why we where wearing the same shirts where we are a walk.  With out missing a beat Mandy steps up and told what we where doing walking 98 miles for marriage equality, they waitress   replied “where that is a very worthy case” .  We ate dinner they she told us to be safe and have a great walk.  I thank that we will it has been so far and we have not even started the walking yet.

 

Saturday August 7, 2010

By Toni Loafman

 

Well, it's 7pm the first day of our walk and we are in the van heading to Prescott for the night. What an incredible day it's been. We started off the morning for breakfast at John Mc Cain's havasu office. His staff must have gotten the memo that we were heading that way cause they were conveniently out to lunch at 9am. Oh well. Onward we go in 110 degree heat. At 11 we met up with the local LGBT community members for a BBQ at a park. But not before me Jimmy and Paul headed straight for the water. It was very refreshing and rejuvenating. Lunch was yummy and filled with great conversation. I felt extremely welcomed by everyone. We had a couple more miles to go in havasu and then we were back in the van for the hour trip to kingman. Phew! 
 
When we got to kingman we were all so excited about having a break we walked .7 miles past our next destination and had to turn back. Haha. What's one more mile right? Wrong! We counted it. Very grateful to have met with some local towns people and vice mayor robin. They were very informative and eager to listen to what we had to say. Wonderful people with a open hearts and minds. Many had suggestions on how they could help to get the word out about what we are trying to do on the walk. We thank them for their hospitality and generous meal. Hopefully the other people we come across on the trip will remain as open as they were. They said themselves that times are changing and no human should be denied their rights regardless of who they love. After our meeting we walked the remaining 3 miles and are done for the day! I personally prefer not to know how far our next destination is because I suddenly have tons of energy when I see the van and wasn't expecting it then! Pleasant surprises. 
Now that I am on the walk I realize just how much time and effort meg and Jimmy have put into this fight. Literally their blood, sweat, and tears. Well I will keep walking and bleed, sweat, and cry with my friends until Arizona recognizes what amazing people are not just in the van with me but all over the united states and they do love one another and deserve marriage equality as much a a man and a woman do. 
 
Thanks for the amazing conversations today fellow equality walkers. You are all Heros in my eyes and I look forward to getting to know each of you more. 
 
I'm really bummed our hotel tonight and tomorrow doesn't have a jacuzzi and I'm pretty sure I will lose 2 toenails on this trip. But I'm grateful to have a shower and a bed tonight and to be a part of this journey. 

 

Sunday August 8, 2010

By Rachel Lack

 

I joined everyone in Prescott this morning.  We started our walk at 8:30am not really knowing what to expect from the people of Prescott, or at least I didn’t know.

 We walked 3 miles to the first stop, the Universalist Unitarian Church.  Everyone was so open to us, telling us how proud they were of us.  It was great to hear, especially first thing in the morning.

 After the service we walked a mile to lunch, which the Prescott Pride Center had set up.  We had a great lunch sharing stories with them.

We then had a long afternoon ahead of us, 11 miles.  During the afternoon, we had people honking at us and cheering us on.  All that energy was great considering we were starting to ache and get blisters.  A couple even stopped us to ask why we were all wearing red.  We told them our story, they understood and agreed with us even though they never really thought about it.  That is why we are doing this, maybe just maybe that couple will remember our conversation next time a vote comes up.

In the early evening we went to a drum circle, we all had a lot of fun learning to play the drums; some of us picked it up pretty quickly.  We were all laughing and having a great time. 

We finished the final 2 miles before 8 pm.  The last mile was up a hill but we kept our spirits high the whole time remembering all the great people we had met in Prescott.  15.3 miles is a great accomplishment but we know we have a long way to go.

Monday August 10th

Tuesday August 11th

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By Paul Roark

 

Well it's our fourth day of walking today and we are in the beautiful city of Flagstaff.  Our day began at 7:30 am, but for Mandy, one of our walkers, it began earlier when she walked across the street to go to Wal-mart and stood outside the store, thinking it was closed, for about 10 minutes before she realized that the store was actually open.(Ha Ha Ha, love you Mandy.)  We began walking from the hotel and headed for City Hall about 2.7 miles away.  Along the way some of us decided to start waving to all the cars driving past the group.  We were pleasantly surprised by how many people actually waved back or honked at us.  When we arrived at City Hall we went to meet with one of the city council members that we had an appointment with but were surprised when we were told that they were out of town. We asked if there was anybody else available that would be willing to meet with us and were told, by the receptionist, that she would ask people as they arrived and give us a call.  Low and behold we never received any phone call. So after leaving City Hall we started out on our remaining 11.5 miles of the day.  It was a somewhat hilly trek throughout the city and luckily it was a beautiful, partly cloudy and cool day.  At our halfway point in mileage for the walk we stopped and celebrated to Bon Jovi's song “Livin' on a Prayer”, by singing and dancing on the side of the road.  It was quite a whimsical site to see. We talked to a number of people as we walked, explaining what we were doing and why and all were completely supportive of our cause. We ended our walk at the Inn at 410, where we were treated to dinner by the owners and Flagstaff Pride and to some great conversation.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel to debrief and get ready for our trip to Holbrook and Winslow bright and early tomorrow morning.

Wednesday August 11th

Well, try as I might I couldn't convince anyone to do my blog for me.
It was suggested that I start with...”Everyone was sweaty and
stinky”.... I've never been a fan of the scent of roses but I was
pleasantly surprised when walking by a garden of rose bushes it smelt
like-well-like roses and it was wonderful. So, the question is.....Was
it the roses being roses? Or... The roses masking the wonderful scent
of my fellow walkers????

 Starting the day at Denny's for breakfast with Pete Henderson in
Winslow set a perfect tone for the day.  A warm and welcoming man
sharing stories of discrimination and inequality from his past, and
present.  He talked about how the local GLBT community did not feel
safe enough to speak out on gay issues,  but there was four or five
straight allies that where trying to create change.


The flat terrain also added pep to everyone's step. The positive
feedback from Winslow's tourists and residents surprised some of us
with welcome relief. As the walkers passed a school during recess the
students ran to the fence and started asking questions about what we
were doing and why were we having a parade? The heart strings were
pulled upon as two little girls walked up to the fence hand in hand.


Stephanie and Jimmy met with a coalition of human service
organizations for northern Arizona.  There was A Catholic sister that
was at the meeting also,  she said that she saw our parade, earlier
and how great it was to see it in Winslow.  At the end of the meeting
they asked about What services they had for the Gay community, and to
are amaze they all had had dealing with the GLBT community,  and were
very welcoming.


Standing on the corner in Winslow was great. The Crew even stopped
traffic without getting arrested!! Actually, we were taking pictures
and the cars stopped for us; we 'yelled' thank you and they smiled and
waved back...

After lunch we headed for Holbrook. We took a quick spin around town
and then met with Cher at city hall. At first
Cher seemed uncomfortable. After talking with the Crew you could see
Cher relax-think and then share her thoughts-ask questions and
acknowledge the need for equality. I thought she spoke honestly about
how she didn't necessarily agree with the GLBT life style....how it
wasn't her place to judge but equality was very important.

We began our trek thru Holbrook and found a friend along the way. I'm
sitting here now wondering if Meg was a child that always brought home
stray kittens or puppies, frogs or bugs and said, "Look mom, can we
keep him?"...as the young man crawled out from under a tree in the
field I was very uncomfortable. After receiving a...sorry we don't
have any extra food or water....Meg changed her mind and asked him to
walk to the van with us and we would help him out. The mom
thought...ARE YOU CRAZY?? Our resident P.P./Paul the Protector left
the front of the pack and blended into their group. The mom relaxed.
Our new friend, Sean, walked three miles with us. His conversations
with Meg..well, you should talk to Meg about those-but she treated him
as a friend with no reserveations at all. Kudo's to you, Meg.

We finished up a long hill-with Jimmy dancing to the blaring song Proud!

May I say the standard...."I have gay friends"  but after this week I
have NEW FRIENDS that I love, respect, and hold close to my heart. I
so love my daughter for being who she is and for inviting me into her
spectacular life.
Thank you Stephanie. I love you. Mom

By: Diane Soumis

 Thursday August 12th

By: Mandee Rowley 

Today started and ended with laughter, as have most days on our journey. We began the day leaving Holbrook and driving the breathtaking northern Arizona countryside to the small towns of Eagar/Springerville. During our wait for our meeting with the town Jimmy almost knocked the mayor out with the van door and Meg realized she was wearing her shirt backwards. Two events depicting our overall state of mental fatigue but resulted in lots of laughter. Our meeting with the mayor and city manager went well. As experienced in most of our meetings we spent our time educating on the lack of LGBT rights. We had a powerful moment when Diane shared her reasons for walking, which brought a few of us to tears as we listened to her love and pride for her daughter and the rest of us (her newly adopted children). The town acknowledged the lack of GLBT presence and were uncertain about whether their non-discrimination policies included sexual orientation and gender identity, but the mayor took many notes during our visit and perhaps we planted a seed.

After our meeting we walked the town of Eagar to the Spingerville intersection and down the highway towards our next destination St Johns. We welcomed the rain while we walked and stopped often for pictures. There is a reason why my aunt calls this part of Arizona God's country. We ended this part of our walk at Becker Lake - perfect serenity.

For lunch we scheduled a meeting with Little Colorado Behavioral Health Center. They fed us sandwiches, listened to our personal stories, and engaged in dialogue about the walk. As clinicians, they were all very interested in being culturally sensitive and competent practitioners when working with the LGBT population. It was an excellent encounter.

We spent the afternoon walking the streets of St Johns, typical small town Arizona. People were friendly and courteous. We stopped for snocones on the side of the road and even had time to relax in a city park, pick crabapples and plan the rest of the evening. Dinner was at a little cafe called Corky's where we continued to enjoy each other's company and educate anyone interested in what our red shirts meant.

We finished our last half mile of the day as we walked up to the town hall building for the St Johns town council meeting. 11 miles done for the day - 82.6 miles total. Much to my surprise, delight, and fear I was listed on the agenda to speak to the mayor and council about our walk. Rachel was asked to start off the pledge of allegiance. When it was my turn, I took Meg up with me because I tend to lose all rational thought when I'm speaking in front of people. We spoke for a couple minutes, the mayor was warm and commended us on or journey, and as I left the podium I stated that we would stick around after the meeting if anyone had questions or wanted to engage in further dialogue... Bad call. The meeting lasted for over two and a half hours. I had a lot of groveling to do in the van on the way to Pinetop. Yet it was all in good fun. My fellow walkers were all able to find some positives and entertainment among the tedious discussion of skate park rules, federal stimulus grant acquisition and utilization, and a mildly heated discussion about city job descriptions. Fun times.

We debriefed on the way to Pinetop where we'd be staying a grand total of 8 hours before heading out again to change hearts and minds in the quaint, old mining town of Globe, AZ. Overall, this was another successful, rewarding day of conversation and connection.