20 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | PERSON OF THE DECADE
Qsaltlake.com |
ISSUE 307 | December 19, 2019
Person of the Decade:
Mark Lawrence BY MICHAEL AARON
Each year,
QSaltLake Magazine declares who we think is the person or the people who have made the greatest difference, for better or worse, to Utah’s LGBTQ community. In 2009 we introduced the People of the Decade, which we awarded to Salt Lake City Councilwomen Deeda Seed and Jill Remington Love and Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson for their longstanding work for our community and their successes in passing positive legislation to benefit us. As we looked back on the 20-teens, many, many people did incredible work to progress the quality of the lives in our community. Many people also worked against us. As our team discussed and argued and brainstormed and reasoned, one name rang out as our Person of the Decade. Mark Lawrence had a dream. His dream brought us the right to marry the partner of our choice, and ultimately brought us a shift in public perception of our community. His dream was hardfought, it was done outside the “powers that be,” and it amazed the world.
I WANTED TO BRING GAY MARRIAGE TO UTAH “I came back from the dead. I felt like I owed humanity something,” Lawrence starts out the film documentary, Church & State. “I wanted to bring gay marriage to Utah.” No one, including those who ultimately became the plaintiffs in the case, thought it was possible. And no one thought he was the man to get it started. “People said, the Mormon Church will never allow gay marriage in Utah. So, I said, well, let’s not go to the Mormon Church with this. We have the federal laws and we have the Constitution,” he said to the filmmakers. Everyone was afraid to stand up to the “big giant.”
APATHY IN SAN FRANCISCO AT THE HEIGHT OF AIDS, CANCER Lawrence grew up in a farm community in Cache County, Utah.
He moved to San Francisco in the 1980s when AIDS was at its peak. Even after being diagnosed as being HIV-positive, he watched on the sidelines as his friends died, as ACT-UP demonstrated. He wondered to himself why he wasn’t one of those fighting and marching. He said it took a lot of guts to do such things. He wondered if he was just afraid. He also knew it would give his life more meaning if he’d gotten involved rather than “reading about it in the paper.” In 2010 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He took a few years to go through chemotherapy and fight it. “I came out of that different,” he said. “I’ve got this second chance. Let’s do something.”
GRASSROOTS BEGINNINGS He created a discussion group on Facebook, saying he was putting together a lawsuit to overturn Utah’s ban on gay marriage. They met in coffee shops to discuss the idea. A small group of people started to congregate around the concept. None had PR or fundraising or legal experience. They just had the will. Lawrence began contacting community leaders, trying to get them on board. He was turned down by each and every one of them. “It really began to piss me off,” Lawrence said. “I went to the ACLU and they said, ‘You can’t possibly be serious.’” He sent out emails to a slough of legal teams. Magleby & Greenwood responded. “I was impressed that he was just an individual wanting to do this,” Peggy Tomsic said. “You know what? I thought, ‘that takes a lot of chutzpah.’” The firm knew it would cost at least a million dollars to launch the fight. “Here he was, he had no connections, but he was saying he could get the gay community of Utah and across the country to pay for it,” Tomsic said in the film. “Did I think he could do it? No. Did that bother me? No. Because it was the right thing to do.” Lawrence worked on getting plaintiffs, and three couples signed on once he had
the legal team in place. Derek Kitchen and Moudi Sbeity; Laurie Wood and Kody Partridge; and Karen Archer and Kate Call were the named plaintiffs in the case.
THE CASE IS HEARD The case was heard by Third District Court Judge Robert Shelby, who in the hearing asked Tomsic if he would be the first to rule in favor of overturn-
