Source: Arizona Republic, Detroit News, Tucson Weekly
For Meg Sneed, a 25-year-old Arizona lesbian, journeys to change a thousand hearts begin with a single thought: There's power in sharing personal stories.
She and other young people have been sharing their stories for the past week during a 96-mile pilgrimage through blazing triple-digit heat in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The walk -- symbolic for the 96-year-history of the state -- ended yesterday at the state capitol, Arizona Republic reports.
With Arizona set to vote in November on Proposition 102, a measure that would ban same-sex couples from marrying, Sneed and other young activists from in Soulforce, a gay-rights group devoted to the peaceful confrontation practiced by Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., decided walk 96 miles to the state capitol to share touching accounts of how the amendment would hurt real people, Deb Price reported last month in her nationally-syndicated Detroit News column.
The pilgrimage was supported by Soulforce's Right to Marry project.
Arizona does not have any legal recognition for gay partners, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. It also was the first state where voters rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
"Arizona has been a state for 96 years, and for 96 years, we've lived without equal marriage protection," one of the walkers explained.
Along their winding route through the sprawling Phoenix area, the group talked to legislators, church groups, and others about what marriage means to LGBT young adults, and how the vote on Prop. 102 this November will impact their future.
"We just feel it is really important for young people to get out and say how they feel about these issues and share their stories," Sneed told Deb Price last month.
21-year-old CJ Minott, a University of Arizona senior, is another member of the core group of walkers. Minott told Tucson Weekly that he'd long been aware of Soulforce's work, but was drawn to the walk because "because this is my home state. This is personal."
Monott explained that marriage has been important to him because he grew up in a Christian family. "But because of Proposition 102," he said, " it's possible I won't have that in my life."
"I've lived here most of my life, and I plan to stay. Arizona is my home," Minott said. "Marriage is something that I was brought up to believe in, and it is a big part of the foundation of our country. That's why I'm willing to stand and walk 96 miles. It's a part of my personal worldview as a Christian and a gay man."
In 2006, Sneed joined other young activists from Soulforce who traveled eight weeks by bus on the group's first "Equality Ride." They visited evangelical colleges to share what it's like to be gay.
The next year, Sneed, who was fighting cancer, was weak from chemotherapy but walked 60 miles to help raise money for breast cancer research.
After spending three days walking to benefit breast-cancer research, she had an idea. What about a walk to raise awareness about marriage inequality?
She picked 96 miles for the six-day trek through egg-frying heat because that's the number of years gay Arizonans haven't had equal rights.
"Walking 96 miles," Sneed told Deb Price last month, "is nothing compared to a gay or lesbian person being told they can't see their partner in their dying moments at a hospital because they don't have full marriage rights."
At the same time as the blazing walk, other Soulforce activists will spread out to share their stories with Arizona's young Mormons and senior citizens, two large voting blocs that most gay-rights supporters would write off, Price reported. But Soulforce never writes anyone off.
"It is important to reach out and have those conversations, because until you get the dialogue started, you can't start change," Sneed says.
Among their stops for Sneed, Minott, and other walkers was the Church of the Beatitudes United Church of Christ in north-central Phoenix.
The Rev. Nancy Elsenheimer is one of the senior pastors at the church, which performs commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples. She called the walkers "courageous" not only for braving the Valley's heat but also for spreading their message through areas not always receptive to gay rights.
"I think it is a courageous stand not only to talk the talk but also to walk the walk," Elsenheimer told Arizona Republic
She also noted that the walkers sometimes had a police escort for fear of how their procession would be greeted by opponents. "For a young person to go out and make a stance like that is a great thing," she said.
A Cronkite/Eight poll in February found Arizona voters supporting an amendment by 49-40 percent, with a whopping 11 percent undecided, Deb Price reports. Sneed sees those numbers as an invitation to keep talking and walking.
"If you just say, 'Their minds are not going to change,' then you are right, their minds are not going to change. But if you reach out to them, then there is a possibility."
Source: 8 finish 96-mile walk to promote equal rights | Arizona Republic
Lesbian tries to blaze trail against Arizona ballot issue | Deb Price (Detroit News)
T Q&A: CJ Minott | Tucson Weekly