Causes of Labor, Gays Join at Event

It was a Cinco de Mayo celebration with a message for the moment.

Christine Chavez, the granddaughter of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, presided over the commitment ceremony of seven gay couples Wednesday across a grassy circle from the California Supreme Court building, which recently slammed the door shut on same-sex marriages.

The event -- marked by such nuptial staples as tears, flowers and video cameras -- was more than purely personal. Organizers billed it as the first step toward uniting two movements, the struggle for gay marriage and the cause of Chavez’s farm workers. It also was intended to send a symbolic message to the state’s swelling Latino population, which remains sharply divided over gay marriage.

“I hope this will spur a debate,” Chavez declared before the ceremonies. “I hope people will stop me on the street to talk about this. I’m going to tell them this is about championing equality for everyone, not just Latinos. We’re not asking the Catholic Church to change its views. It’s about changing the law.”

It’s also about love and acceptance, according to Terry Ortega and Linda Fergurson.

The couple, bedecked in their best and holding flower bouquets, completed their vows amid a crowd of friends and supporters on the broad stone steps of the state Treasury Building. After exchanging rings, they gave each other the traditional hug and kiss, then embraced the smiling Chavez.

Finally the couple received the United Farm Workers’ red flag emblazoned with the black Aztec eagle.

“We’d have done this if there had been no crowd at all,” said Fergurson, 46, whose Latino forebears worked the fields and canning sheds of the Central Valley. “But we wanted to do this today to be leaders, to show others that it’s safe to follow, it’s safe to commit yourself to loving another person of the same sex.”

Ortega, 52, nodded in agreement. “This isn’t about religion,” she said. “It’s about human rights and equal rights and family and people who respect each other and respect the dignity of each other.”

But as word spread of the Cinco de Mayo commitment ceremony in the capital, not all were in agreement.

Father Marcos Gonzalez, associate pastor at St. Andrews Church in Pasadena, said the teachings of the Bible and the leanings of the Latino community are quite clear: Though violence and discrimination against homosexuals is vehemently opposed, same-sex relations are deplored as a sin.

“I wouldn’t think this would play too well in either the church or among Latinos in general,” Gonzalez said. “For Catholics, marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s an even stronger feeling in the Latino community. We come from countries where such things are not discussed. Even among those who aren’t practicing Catholics, it seems to be in the blood.”

A recent Los Angeles Times poll underlined the sharp divide. Asked their feelings about an amendment to the U.S. Constitution legally defining marriage as between a man and woman, 51% of Latinos said they favor such a national law, compared to 39% of whites and 43% of society at large.

Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC, said his think tank’s own surveys consistently show that first-generation Latinos are less open to gay rights, a salient fact in a state where one of every two Latino adults was born in a foreign land.

“I think this event will accomplish its purpose of raising the issue and generating discussion,” Pachon said. “I’m sure Spanish-language media will talk about it. It won’t be run of the mill.”

Others expressed confidence that Latinos, with a heritage of deeply rooted family life and strong links between generations, will eventually prove far more accepting of gay rights than the general public. Focus groups set up by gay rights organizations indicate that once Latinos accept that their own sons and daughters and nephews and nieces might include gays and lesbians, they become more understanding of the need for equal rights -- even in marriage.

“The silence needs to end, the taboo needs to be lifted,” said Martin Ornelas-Quintero, executive director of the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization. “The more they see we are their children, we are their family members, the more that connection will be made.”

For Chavez, 32, the ceremony marked something of a passing of the torch.

One of her childhood memories was getting arrested at age 4 along with her grandfather and parents during a protest in Detroit. Family life in the years that followed invariably involved siblings and cousins getting together at demonstrations with their grandfather, the civil rights leader. “We used to say we had family pickets, not picnics,” Chavez said.

In addition to his work on behalf of farm workers, Cesar Chavez proved a bedrock supporter of gay rights. In 1989, he spoke at the massive gathering of gays and lesbians on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“If there’s anything I learned from my grandfather, it’s that you can’t champion equality for your own people while tolerating discrimination for anyone else,” said Christine Chavez, a small and slender woman with a glowing smile.

Chavez, who is not gay, is Southern California political director for the United Farm Workers, the organization her grandfather founded, but largely works behind the scenes. Her participation in Wednesday’s event came at the behest of two longtime players in Sacramento politics.

The idea came from Carole Migden, a former assemblywoman from San Francisco now on the state Board of Equalization, and political consultant Richie Ross. Migden, who is a lesbian, was lamenting the lack of Latino support for gay causes. Ross, her campaign manager, drew up the plans for Wednesday’s event.