‘Together, We’ve Kicked Some Ass’

ONE SAME-SEX COUPLE’S 23-YEAR-LONG ACTIVISM JOURNEY

STORY BY

LAUREN GALVAN

PHOTOS COURTESY OF

KELLY WINE

Kelly Wine and Joe Delaplaine have been fighting for equality and social justice for over two decades, and there is no sign of them stopping anytime soon.

Joe and Kelly posing in the burned out stump of a redwood tree during a hike in Mammoth.

Joe and Kelly posing in front of the Stonewall Inn. This is where the Stonewall riots took place in New York in the summer of 1969 in response to police raiding the gay bar.

1999 1999

"It was a dangerous time to be different, from the color of your skin to who you loved."

A 23-year-long marriage filled with constant sarcastic banter, unconditional love, overall support, and involvement in numerous protests to help win the fight for equality, social justice, and basic human rights is exactly what this couple signed up for.

For Kelly Wine and Joe Delaplaine, it all started in the age of dial-up, when online dating was a new and exciting way of meeting people. However, being a gay man in the ’90s was not exactly safe, and with the territory of trying to meet strangers online came risk. “It was super terrifying,” Wine said. “My mom and dad were like, ‘You’re going to get murdered’ every time I would go on a date. But it worked out, we just had to date outside of our area codes and it worked out fine.” One of their first “dates” was a vigil honoring Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man in Wyoming who was killed by two men who offered him a ride home after a night at the bar. The two men ended up brutally attacking him and leaving him tied to a fence, bleeding and unconscious. He was put in a coma and later succumbed to his injuries. According to Delaplaine, this event was a galvanizing moment for the LGBT community. Together, Wine and Delaplaine organized the vigil, and that was just the beginning of the numerous protests and gatherings that the two would put together. During the late ’90s, two other tragedies occurred, including the murder of James Byrd Jr., a Black man who was killed by white supremacists in Texas, and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting. Wine and Delaplaine decided to bring awareness to those stories as well. “We combined all those and had people come from the Jewish community, the Black community, and the LGBT community,” Delaplaine said. “It brought a lot of different people together to say that this was all one struggle.” It was a dangerous time to be different, from the color of your skin to who you loved. However, Delaplaine has seen a dramatic change after living in a time where it was basically illegal to be a part of the LGBTQ community. Now, there is more awareness because people are continuing to push, Delaplaine said. When Wine and Delaplaine were involved in a protest, people could count on it being huge and being louder than the airport that was across the street. They also made sure to involve as many oppressed communities as possible and ensure that they would have a platform to help raise their voices and bring awareness. It was no different when Prop. 8, a ballot proposition in California that was intended to ban same-sex marriage, was being discussed and highly debated in 2008. On the night that Prop. 8 passed, a protest that started in front of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints resulted in traffic halting and streets closing. They wanted change, and it wasn’t coming from those who had power. They couldn’t wait around for the politicians to do something after being told by people in charge to “just wait,” so they took matters into their own hands. According to Wine, they were told not to make a ruckus. The protest, which took place during rush hour, consisted of so many people that they ended up marching from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints through Westwood and back down Santa Monica Boulevard.

2002

Joe, Kelly and their friend Paula Arnett in San Francisco. at a march against racism and anti-LGBTQ hate speech.

“People were stopped in their cars, and we were walking between the lanes of cars,” Wine said. “They couldn’t move because there were so many people. It was fucking exciting.” Not too long after, Prop. 8 was overturned after a ruling that it violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Although Wine and Delaplaine did not want to get married and were content with that, they decided it was something bigger than the two of them. The reality was, either one of them could have been denied medical care or been unable to make decisions for each other, according to Delaplaine. When the opportunity came, after years of fighting for marriage equality, they took it. With a small window of time when they could get married in California, they decided to do it. Wine’s mom drove in from Orange County, picked them up in her Cadillac, and drove them to the courthouse by the Los Angeles International Airport. They were married by a “little Russian justice of the peace,” Wine said. “We got married, my mom put us back in her Cadillac,” Wine said. “We drove to P.F. Chang’s and had lettuce wraps.” That day, after years of bickering, fighting side by side, losing friends, planning protests that shut down streets, and inspiring the younger generations, they were married. Surrounded by a poorly painted wooden arch covered in fake flowers. “Not being abandoned by somebody because you’re not perfect was a huge eyeopener for me,” Delaplaine said. “Especially when you’re told that you’re not anything your whole life.”

Immigrants Rights March on May 1, 2006, in downtown Los Angeles. One million people attended, marching against HR 4437.

2006

2021

“Not being abandoned by somebody because you’re not perfect was a huge eye-opener for me. Especially when you’re told that you’re not anything your whole life.”

Joe and Kelly on their front step in Santa Monica after they were vaccinated against COVID-19 in summer 2021.

Joe and Kelly on their way to march in the Pride Parade in West Hollywood.