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Backstory Blog

June 01, 2011 | Marty Rouse

Category: Marriage, New York, Greater New York

Memorial Day Weekend in New York - Making American History

Over 100 volunteers spent this Holiday weekend at over a dozen Memorial Day weekend events across the Empire State talking about the upcoming legislative vote on marriage equality.

We talked to New Yorkers alongside parade routes, Main Streets, in shopping center parking lots, at beaches, at carnivals, on train platforms and in lines for ice cream , coffee, tacos, and movie tickets.

Our teams worked the crowds at parades in Troy, Rennselaer, Hyde Park, Beacon, Rochester, Forest Hills, Glendale, Maspeth, East Northport, Manhasset, Mineola, St. James, and Stony Brook.

Along the parade route in the bucolic Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, one woman grabbed the clipboard out of my hand and said, “Thank you so much for being here. I have a gay brother and I want to go to his wedding one day.”

I told her that her brother would be proud of her support and she teared up.  It was a Memorial Day weekend I won’t soon forget.