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Stanley-Galloway Family 1: Reginald Stanley (l) and
Rocky Galloway with their twin daughters Malena
and Zoe at home in Chevy Chase, DC |
As a male couple, Rocky Galloway and Reginald Stanley haven’t been able to jump the broom yet. But they still consider themselves married with children. They will tell you that they have scaled over a few hurdles to create their version of the modern family. So when marriage equality does come to DC, as expected, they say it will be a stroll in the park, or perhaps, in their expansive backyard.
For one thing, they are two professional African-American men raising twin daughters in a DC suburban-style home just west of Rock Creek Park. On many levels they are different from most parents of 1-year-olds, but they say they fit in quite well with their child-rearing neighbors and many others with whom they come in contact. Their home shows all the signs of toddlers – a stroller built for two, a pair of high chairs, and toys and books from the Building Blocks collection. “Parenting is a common experience,” said Galloway, a late-40s IT professional. “It cuts across race, class, income level and region and it is understood by everybody.”
Two Married Guys with Girls
Stanley and Galloway have given their two daughters, Malena and Zoe, both their last names in hyphenated form. The girls call Galloway daddy and Stanley dad or baba, which is Swahili for father. They were both at the hospital when the girls were born, and they have been a part of their lives ever since. The two partners haven’t traveled to Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont or Iowa, states where people of the same gender are able to marry legally, with New Hampshire joining the list as of Jan. 1, 2010. Yet, they both wear gold bands on their ring finger.
They have been in a relationship for more than four years. Although they have had a “commitment ceremony,” which has been the most that gay and lesbian couples could really do to establish their relationship, they hope to be able to soon marry legally in DC once the DC Council approves legislation granting same-gender couples that opportunity. The council just recently held a hearing on the bill, titled the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009," and it is expected to pass with a majority of votes from the 13-member body, which includes two openly gay councilmembers. One of those gay councilmembers, David Catania, a former Republican who is now an Independent, authored the bill.
As with most legislation in the District, it must be approved by Congress before it can become law. There is opposition to the bill from some members of the religious community, but apparently more members of the faith community have thrown their support behind the legislation.
Though Stanley and Galloway agree that getting married won’t change the way they feel about each other, they plan to have a wedding either at Unity Church in Shaw or at home, perhaps next summer, said Stanley, if the legislation is approved in time for them to plan a summer wedding. “But hopefully, it will be as soon as the legislation passes,” he commented. “I would hope to be one of the first to represent the progression in equal rights and equal access that this city can and should represent,” noted Stanley, who grew up in the District. “It’s why I love the city I live in,” He believes legal marriage will change the way the world sees him and his partner.
Galloway said that the opportunity to marry legally would represent another step in leveling the playing field. He feels that being legally married to Stanley would make them both more “open to the world and less guarded.”
In Stanley’s opinion, a marriage license reaffirms the commitment that people make to one another. To put it very simply, the two, who are both “out” at work, would like to be able to use the word that many of their co-workers use at the office to describe the person they share their lives with – “husband.” They already refer to Malena and Zoe as their children.
Their daughters are just about a year old now. The couple first entered the adoption process about two years ago, hoping for a single child. They say they knew that Malena and Zoe were meant to be their daughters soon after they learned about them. The two were born to a Kenyan father and a white mother in Pennsylvania. “The fact that our daughters share a heritage like that of President Barack Obama made it feel even more right,” acknowledged Stanley, a vice president of marketing at the Calvert Group, an investment firm located in Bethesda, Md.
The adoption process was “open,” they pointed out. The birth mother, with whom they maintain a relationship, “chose us to be the adoptive parents” Stanley disclosed. Her husband, the girls’ birth father, is deceased.
“We envisioned ourselves as parents,” Stanley said. “We wanted to share our blessings with children and contribute to their lives and hopefully make all of us richer and fuller people.”
A Walk Down the Aisle at Church
Unity Church, where the couple worships, has long welcomed gays and lesbians to their fellowship. Unity recently moved from Capitol Hill to 1225 R St. NW in Shaw. Stanley said he was certain that their wedding would be welcome there if they wanted to walk down the aisle together.
Further up town in Mount Pleasant, All Souls Unitarian Church, along with a coalition of nearly 200 District clergy, has come out strongly in support of the rights of gays and lesbians to marry each other in the District. The couple has friends who are long-term partners with a pre-school aged child who attend services at All Souls.
The Rev. Robert M. Hardies, senior minister at All Souls along with the Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, a pastor at Covenant Baptist Church in Ward 8, have said that they support marriage equality “because of our commitment to God’s inclusive love and justice.” The two ministers said that opponents of marriage, not only in Washington but across the country, have tried to win African-Americans, especially, to their side by painting gay marriage as a blasphemous attempt of privileged white gays to highjack “traditional marriage” on the grounds that opposite gender-only marriage denies them civil rights.
“To suggest that the struggle for marriage equality in Washington affects only a small number of white people from Dupont Circle is an affront to the rich diversity of the District’s gay and lesbian community, and it erases the lives of thousands of gay and lesbian people of color, some of whom are members of our churches,” they argued. |
