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Partners Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Couples Online from 1995-2022 Demian and Steve Bryant originally founded Partners as a monthly newsletter in 1986. By late 1990 it was reformatted into a bi-monthly magazine. Print publication was halted by 1995 when Demian published Partners as a Web site, which greatly expanded readership. In 1988, the Partners National Survey of Lesbian & Gay Couples report was published; the first major U.S. survey on same-sex couples in a decade. In 1996, Demian produced The Right to Marry, a video documentary based on the dire need for equality that was made clear by the data from the survey mentioned above. The video featured interviews with Rev. Mel White, Evan Wolfson, Phyllis Burke, Richard Mohr, Kevin Cathcart, Faygele benMiriam, Benjamin Cable-McCarthy, Susan Reardon, Frances Fuchs, Tina Podlodowski, and Chelle Mileur. Demian has been the sole operator during the last two decades of Partners. Demian stopped work on Partners Task Force in order to realize his other time-consuming projects, which include publishing the book “Operating Manual for Same-Sex Couples: Navigating the rules, rites & rights” - which is now available on Amazon. The book is based on the Partners Survey mentioned above, his interviews of scores of couples, and 36 years of writing hundreds of articles about same-sex couples. It’s also been informed by his personal experience in a 20-year, same-sex relationship. Demian’s other project is to publish his “Photo Stories by Demian” books based on his more than six decades as a photographer and writer. |
Resolution in Support of Civil Marriage for Same-Sex Couples Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association March 16, 2004 ———— Background In 1984, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College became the first Jewish seminary to endorse the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis when it adopted a policy of non-discrimination in admissions on the basis of sexual orientation. At its 1990 convention, the RRA recommended that the Reconstructionist movement establish a non-discrimination policy in rabbinic placement. The following year, a movement-wide policy was enacted prohibiting discrimination in the referral of resumes of candidates for positions within congregations. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association has, from its founding in 1974, automatically welcomed all graduates of the College for membership; in 1991, the RRA adopted a formal policy of non-discrimination in membership, thus acknowledging the previously unwritten policy. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (then FRCH) adopted a resolution in 1985 welcoming congregations that primarily serve gay and lesbian Jews. In 1993 both the RRA and FRCH adopted the findings and recommendations of the Reconstructionist Commission on Homosexuality. Those conclusions called for the welcoming of gay men and lesbians as full members of our communities, and supported rabbis who worked with and officiated at rituals and rites of passage for gay and lesbian Jews and same-sex couples, including wedding ceremonies. The Reconstructionist movement has been at the forefront of efforts to include and integrate gay and lesbian Jews into all aspects of Jewish communal and religious life. The RRA now wants to go on record as being in support of full and equal civil marriage for gay men and lesbians in the United States.
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