As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, many LGBTQ+ Michiganders are worried about potential changes in policy that could impact their lives. That includes the possibility of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision which legalized gay marriage.
In Lansing, seven LGBTQ+ couples came together at a special event over the weekend to tie the knot in an effort to protect their love.
Dae Iddings and Jaden Ziv have been engaged for five out of the seven years they’ve been together, but Ziv says life just kept getting in the way.
"We were already hoping to get married next year anyway, but we just got nervous with how fast things move, especially with the Supreme Court,” he said.
Ziv is transgender, and the couple even moved this year to Michigan from Tennessee hoping to find greater safety. But Iddings says there’s still uncertainty about what’s next.
"It's not the end of the world, but sometimes it feels like we could lose our rights in a blink of an eye,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like we could lose our rights in a blink of an eye.Dae Iddings
So, when they saw that Copper Moon, an event venue in Old Town Lansing, was offering its space this month for LGBTQ+ couples who wanted to make their partnerships legal, they jumped at the opportunity.
Copper Moon co-owner Lynn Lucas says she was frustrated in the days after the November election but wanted to turn that frustration into something positive.
She posted in a Lansing-area Facebook group asking if anyone would be interested in a free thirty-minute ceremony.
"We put it out there, and we were, like, just so you know, we are willing to do this for the community.”
Seven couples signed up. Volunteers pitched in to help with photography and managing guests, and friends and neighbors dropped off champagne and small wedding cakes for each couple.
For Lucas, the event was a natural fit for her business. An event planner before she opened Copper Moon, she would sometimes run into venues that were not always friendly to LGBTQ+ couples.
“It was hurtful to some of our past clients, and I got really tired of not knowing what we were going into.”
Copper Moon took over the space from LGBTQ+ club, Spiral Dance Bar, which closed during the pandemic. Lucas says they try to honor the building’s roots.
“We had the very clear mission of having a truly inclusive venue,” she said. “That means that we are not here to judge. We are here to help you celebrate whatever that moment in life is that you want to celebrate.”
Kay Dietrich says it was special to have their wedding in the space that used to be Spiral.
"It's so incredible, taking a previously queer space and giving it to the queer community as a space to use for something so beautiful in a time so ugly,” they said.
Dietrich has known their partner since high school. They say they even had a wedding reception over the summer, but like Ziv and Iddings, they hadn’t made their partnership legal yet.
“We kept kind of pushing it off, and then the election happened, and the importance of getting married now really hit us,” Dietrich said. “As a queer, trans, disabled, feminine-born individual, that's something that is beautiful in and of itself, and being able to marry someone that I love and care about, and doing that, despite everything going on that is, to me, the most important thing.”
It’s unclear what would happen in Michigan if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Obergefell decision.
The state has a law on the books from the mid-1990s banning same-sex marriage, and Michigan voters also approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
If the decision were to be overturned, there would likely be further litigation to determine whether the move would retroactively impact already married LGBTQ+ couples.
Despite the unknown of what’s to come, Iddings says for now, she wants to celebrate.
“The most important thing is that we're together,” she said. “We did get the opportunity to have this beautiful ceremony, and most of our friends and family were able to make it.”
This piece was produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
