To persuade Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings to sign the Mayors for the Freedom to Marry resolution, a change.org message urged people to call Rawlings’ office Friday, Feb. 24 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to show their support for the resolution. Gay Marriage Alliance president senior Danah Taylor shared the message on Facebook to reach a greater audience.
“We can get more people to call and try to get him to realize that if he’s going to represent Texas and DFW as a whole and we all want him to sign this, then he should get to it,” Taylor said.
Rawlings has publicly declared in a Facebook post his personal support for the LGBT community but said he will not sign the resolution because he does not want to focus on social issues.
“Obviously he has a fear that if he does sign it, it will affect his position as a politician,” Taylor said. “That’s the purpose of letting him know – a lot of people are there, backing him up.”
However, Taylor said that, realistically, there will always be opposition to same-sex marriage.
“Ignorance is everywhere,” Taylor said. “You just have to try to minimize it and make knowledge more powerful than that.”
By signing the resolution, Rawlings would not automatically legalize same-sex marriage in Dallas or in Texas.
“It shows support and it makes it move forward,” Taylor said. “It’s already a huge step, regardless of whether it gets signed by him or not.”
Taylor said that because interracial marriage was once frowned upon too, it can be compared to same-sex marriage.
“Fifty years ago, it was weird for a black person to marry a white person, and now that’s completely normal and acceptable,” Taylor said. “Hopefully 50 years from now, gay marriage won’t be a problem.”
Taylor said she doesn’t think same-sex marriage should be called differently than any other type of marriage.
“I saw this thing, and it was like, ‘When I park, I don’t gay-park. I just park. When I go shopping, I don’t gay-shop. I just shop,’” Taylor said. “Why would it be gay marriage?”
