Wedding cake for equality

By Meg Sneed

This morning we packed up our belongings from our “home” in Plattsburgh and headed on a scenic drive to Lake Placid. When we arrived in town the streets where lined with people who were in town for the Ironman that was taking place that weekend in Lake Placid. We picked up a wedding cake and headed to main street in our “Do you believe in Marriage? I do.“ t-shirts and picked a spot near the water to start handing out wedding cake. With the cake we also handed out literature that explained the importance of Gay Marriage and how for us Marriage is not “A piece of cake”. Because it was iron man weekend giving away cake turned out to be a little more difficult than we first imagined, but even when people where unwilling to take a piece of cake they often took literature and were open to dialog with us.

We found that there were a lot of Canadians in town many of whom where shocked that in the U.S. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Americans do not have equal marriage rights. There was a man who walked by and said that he would take a piece of cake because he had voted yes on the bill, and it turned out to be an Assemblyman of the 121st district Al Stirpe. There was a mother and a daughter who stated that because of the Bible they could not be for Marriage Equality and they had an at length discussion with Brian and Matt about the Bible and homosexuality. We also spoke to many New Yorkers including two straight couples with young children who stated that they saw Marriage Equality as a Civil Rights Issue.

At the end of our day in Lake Placid we gave away 100 pieces of cake and handed out literature and started the conversation about Marriage Equality with New Yorkers, Canadians, and Americans from across the United States. From here we will be headed to Canton, New York.