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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. |
I Will Sign the Resolution San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders September 19, 2007 Press Conference © September 21, 2007, Demian San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders signed, on September 19, 2007, a City Council resolution supporting a challenge to California’s same-sex marriage ban. This is a reversal from his public opposition to-date, previously promising to veto it. The Republican mayor said he could no longer back the position he took during his election campaign two years ago. At that time he favored civil unions, and not full marriage rights for same-sex couples. According to Allison Hoffman of the Associated Press, the mayor fought back tears as he said he wanted his adult daughter, Lisa, and other gay people he knows, to have their relationships equally protected under state laws. Mayor Jerry Sanders: “In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana,”The mayor, a former police chief, who is up for re-election next year, acknowledged that many voters who supported his earlier stance might disagree with his shift, but said he had to do what he believed was right. The City Council had voted 5-3, on September 18, 2007, in favor of joining other California cities to back a California Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn the same-sex marriage ban.
Below is a transcript of the mayor’s press conference regarding his decision to support the fight for legal marriage.
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