News

UM students ride for pride

By Kaley Roberts

Posted on April 23, 2009, at 1:30 a.m.

A group speckled with the orange of the University of Maine’s 2009 Pride-Week T-shirts gathered under the BAT bus shelter outside of Memorial Union April 22, well before the sun rose. This cluster represented students who support L.D. 1020, the bill to secure equal-marriage rights for gay people in Maine, and who were headed to witness the Augusta hearing to decide its fate.

The group was a mix of the bleary-eyed, coffee deprived and exhilarated. When a ration of fresh coffee appeared, the sleepier members of the crowd perked up. Soon, excited chatter replaced early morning yawns and grunts. The 5 a.m. bus was late, but the students remained patient and calm. They were going to witness history.

When a school bus the same color as their “one in ten” pride shirts materialized from the early morning fog, the crew ambled inside.

The riders passed around donuts and water and spent time talking about what brought them together for the trip.

Samantha Hansen, a second-year student and vice president of Wilde Stein, sat at the front of the bus. The blonde grinned broadly as she explained why she was here at 5 a.m.

“I’m testifying today – that’s why I’m wearing a shirt with buttons,” she said, gesturing to a green dress shirt partially hidden by her Pride Week T-shirt.

Hansen turned serious when she spoke about why she felt it was important to support gay marriage.

“I’m a huge supporter of this bill and this movement. I think that diversity is natural and I want to have a government that honors diversity and says ‘marriage is a union between two people,’” Hansen said. “I’m gay myself and I really, really, really want to get married and have a bunch of kids someday.”

Behind Hansen, second-year student Tanya Ubeda sat nodding.

“If marriage wasn’t a sacred thing, same-sex couples wouldn’t be fighting so hard for it,” Ubeda said.

Like Hansen and Ubeda, fellow bus-rider Ginevra Pfohl, a third-year student, has strong hopes for the event in Augusta. As a transgender Mainer who identifies as bisexual, Pfohl’s main drive to support the bill is hope for the future.

“There is a chance that [the] person I fall in love with and eventually marry will be the same sex as me and, that being the case, I’d like to be able to enter into a marriage and have all the rights that a heterosexual couple would have,” Pfohl said.