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Archive Version of
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. |
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Premature, Unnecessary Legislation Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, (D) Texas House Floor Statement, July 11, 1996 No one can deny that the family as an institution has changed dramatically since the days when our own parents were children. Today, there is no single definition of family that applies to all individuals. A family may be made up of two parents and their children, grandparents caring for grandchildren, single mothers or single fathers raising their children, couples without children, foster parents and foster children, or individuals of the same-sex living together and sharing their lives as a couple, how their relationships are handled should be left to the states. This legislation takes the right of the states away. We need to respect the human rights of all these American families. We should not make laws which are based on an antiquated notion of what constitutes a family. This unnecessary legislation patently disregards the 14th Amendment provision that provides equal protection under the law to all Americans. I believe this legislation has been rushed forward with little thought and reason. As a wife and a mother, I believe in the human family. The institution of marriage should be cherished and respected, however, same-sex relationships allow human beings to express their attitude of caring for each other. Recognized same-sex relationships simply allow individuals living together and loving each other to be entitled to the rights associated with a loving and caring relationship. This legislation would define marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” The word spouse would refer “only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Never before has the federal government attempted to define either marriage or spouse. This has, and continues to be, the role of the states and they have done it well for the past 200 years. It is beyond the responsibility of the federal government to define marriage and impose that definition on the states. Furthermore, even if (as the bill’s sponsors claim) the federal government needs to step in to clarify differing definitions between states, this legislation is premature. Same-sex marriage is not legal in any state. Hawaii is unlikely to decide the issue of same-sex marriage for at least two years, so this legislation attacks an issue which is not yet ripe. The only reasons to deal with it now is to make it a political controversy.
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