White Plains Club to Host Gay Marriage Anniversary Party

Cortlandt Manor resident David Juhren says it’s like eating that saved piece of wedding cake on the first anniversary of your marriage.

“We’re having our cake and eating it too,” said the executive director of The LOFT LGBT Community Services Center for the Lower Hudson Valley in White Plains. “Just as couples celebrate their wedding anniversary, we’re celebrating the anniversary of our ability to even get married in the first place.” 

The LOFT’s Marriage Anniversary Party on Friday, July 27 at 7 p.m. will commemorate June 24, 2011 when New York became the 6th state —and the union's largest— to legalize same-sex marriages.

“Everyone who supports marriage equality, is a same-sex couple who are married or planning to marry, and those who worked so hard to have our full marriage rights are welcome,” said Juhren. 

The event—hosted by Ann Post and Jean Marie Angelo who will be celebrating five years of marriage—will include a barbeque on followed by a showing of two documentaries: “March On,” about LGBT families who traveled to Washington D.C. in October of 2009 to protest for equal rights, and “Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement” about a lesbian couple who finally tie-the-knot. Juhren said the event would be educational as well as celebratory.

Married couples are encouraged to bring photos of their wedding to share. 

Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children, click here to RSVP.

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“It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already, and I remember the pomp and ceremony last year when many same sex couples descended on Greenburgh town hall to be married there on the very first day it was legal,” said Juhren.

Since then, New York organizations that worked to get the same-sex marriage bill passed in New York are helping organizations in other states to achieve marriage equality for gay couples, according to Juhren.

“It’s good to know that we didn’t just rest on our laurels, but that we know that until every same sex couple in this country has the same rights as different sex couples, we will continue to work towards full marriage equality in this great country of ours," said Juhren.

However, not everyone is celebrating the anniversary of Senate’s 32-29 vote in favor of the bill last year.

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy has recently said the fast-food chain is “guilty-as-charged” when it comes to funding anti-gay organizations.

According to The Huffington Post, Cathy said in an appearance on The Ken Coleman Show:

“I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about.”

Juhren said he hopes the marriage anniversary party will remind people, gay and straight, what it took to get same-sex marriage legalized in New York.

“We not only celebrate the one year anniversary of marriage equality, but the years of advocacy work by an untold number of people—from the early days of the LGBT Movement where we had to prove that we were citizens deserving of equal respect and equal rights, to those who at the last minute were working to make sure the New York Senate passed that legislation,” said Juhren. “It is the fruition of a movement, and we’re delighted to be able to celebrate.”

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