DRIFTWOOD Volume: 58 Issue: 17
The community newspaper of the University of New Orleans
driftwood.uno.edu
February 11, 2015
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD
Unity to raise marriage equality awareness with annual event Coreyiel Ellis Driftwood Staff
With Supreme Court rulings about same-sex marriage right around the corner, marriage equality has never been more important. Unity, the campus organization will use their annual Marriage Equality event to bring attention to the cause. The event takes place in the quad on Feb. 11, 2015 from 11 - 3 p.m. “It’s our 4th year doing it. We always do it on or around Valentine’s Day,” said Unity’s President, Ally Daily. “We hold the event as a protest against marriage inequality in Louisiana.” The event is used as a fun way to educate people in the issues of marriage inequality in the state. “It’s a time for people to dress up and have fun and take pictures under the arch,” said Daily. “We get a lot of positive feedback.” “People get a kick out getting to marry their best friend for the day,” said Daily. “At the Unity event, we allow them to marry multiple people; like marry all of their friends. They can get married more than once. It’s really just a fun way to come out and dress up and get silly.” Though the Marriage Equality Day event is fun, there is a bigger message within it.“I’d love for people to come and realize that marriage equality is still an issue in the state of Louisiana and that it’s one of our biggest goals if not our only one,” said Daily. The Unity Marriage Equality Day event attracts many students across campus using it’s central location. “The good thing about having it in the quad is that we get a lot of traffic when classes let out. So people who haven’t heard of Unity before can come over and see our big arch and check it out, ” said Daily. This year, Unity is selling rainbow ribbons that show the student’s support at the Marriage Equality event. “Any money we make selling our ribbons at the event goes into the Unity funds to fund our projects like this,” said Daily. Unity members help out with putting the event together and partaking in the fun. “Of course we get our members to come out and help with the event and participate in it,” said Daily Unity is working towards gaining support from the general public and UNO students to fight marriage inequality within the state. “For marriage equality to be accomplished in this state, we’re going to need everybody’s
support,” said Daily. “We can’t just have people in the queer community working towards it. We need allies; we need straight people to realize what we’re working towards. We need help.” To help fight marriage inequality in the state, everyone must educate themselves on what’s happening around them. “The biggest way that everyone can help is to just get educated about the situations that are happening around Louisiana and around the country as well,” said Unity’s Vice President, Moe Labbe. “Education is the first step to helping change a problem.” Unity has been promoting equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, questioning and asexual community around campus for five years. “Unity is the LGBTQIQA+ organization on campus so our biggest goal is, number one, to offer a safe place for people who identify
within the queer community to come and be a part of a little family and to know that they’re not alone on UNO’s campus,” said Daily. “Our second goal is to educate the general population around UNO and in the city of New Orleans about what we stand for, what we’re trying to accomplish and how we’re not any different from our allies or anybody else on campus.” In a relatively short amount of time, Unity has reached a lot of students across the campus and gained a lot of support.. “We’ve been active on this campus for five years. We just had two of our members on the Homecoming court,” said Daily. “We’ve got nothing but acceptance and support in that endeavor and we haven’t had any problems on campus. I think that we’re definitely promoting acceptance and tolerance and I think that our message is getting
across.” Unity welcomes all students to join the group’s weekly meetings and learn more about issues and happenings in the queer community. “We have general meetings on Mondays at 3 p.m. in Milneburg Hall, room 319,” said Daily. “We do welcome all people to our general meetings, not just people who identify within the queer community but also our allies and people who want to get more informed and educated about things in the queer community,” said Labbe. “We accept all people.” As for the Marriage Equality Day event, Unity invites everyone to come out and have fun. Daily said“We hope that people come out to the event... and have a great time.” Illustration by Delvonte Smith