Partners Of 30 Years, A 65 And 66 Year Old Lesbian Couple Arrested In North Carolina Protesting State’s Anti-Same Sex Marriage Law

Spousal survivor benefits. Earned income tax credit. Those, reports The Asheville Citizen-Times, are two of the nearly 1,200 rights afforded to married couples by the federal government and two of the dozens read aloud by the Rev. Kathryn Cartledge and Elizabeth Eve on Friday afternoon before they were arrested on second-degree trespassing charges by the Buncombe County Sheriffs Office. Cartledge and Eve, partners of 30 years, sat with legs crossed on the floor of the Buncombe County Register of Deeds office, refusing to leave, after being denied a marriage license. It was their second rejection, the first having come October 3 when they helped kick off the Campaign for Southern Equality’s We Do Campaign here. The Fairview couple’s demonstration was the culmination of the 12-day campaign, during which 20 area same-sex couples requested marriage licenses, knowing they would be rejected. To show their support for the effort, an estimated 300 people gathered Friday afternoon at Roger McGuire Green for a public blessing of same-sex couples. Many then walked together to the Register’s office, and no counter-protesters were evident. At the office, Cartledge, 65, and Eve, 66, took turns reading from a list of married couples’ federal rights and benefits before their peaceful arrest. “We are simply asking for these 1,200 rights for (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) families,” Eve said as she sat down with the woman she fell in love with three decades ago when they were soup kitchen volunteers in Atlanta. During her earlier speech on the green, Cartledge urged the crowd to “put the fight in the context of civil rights” and said that all “humans and citizens have the right to full equality and equal protection under the law.” In the time between Cartledge and Eve’s rejection and their departure in handcuffs, two heterosexual couples received congratulations and marriage licenses. Friday’s actions were intended to draw attention to what participants say are unjust and intolerant laws, as well as to challenge a proposed amendment to the North Carolina constitution that would ban marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. North Carolina voters will get to decide the amendment’s fate in May. The activists have plans for similar efforts elsewhere in North Carolina and around the South next year.