Dear Reverend Eugene T.

Dyszlewski,

My name is Marissa Mariotti and I am a junior at the University of Rhode Island. As one

of my assignments in a writing class, I needed to pick a local topic which meant something to

me. I chose equal marriage rights for couples of the same sex. As you are a chairperson for the

RI Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality, I thought you would be able to utilize your

position within Marriage Equality RI and RCME to start a new campaign I have created. Of

course people who are attracted to others of the same sex are going to in favor of these couples

getting married. However the target market of my campaign would be religious organizations

and households who are against same sex marriages.

According to the Williams Institute’s Census Snapshot, there were about 2,471 same-sex

couples living in Rhode Island as of the year 2000. They estimated that there are 27,000 gay,

lesbian, or bisexual people living in Rhode Island. The nationalatlas.gov reported that there were

1,048,319 people living in RI as of 2000. This shows that 2.6% of Rhode Island residents are

gay. The University of Rhode Island has 17,000 undergraduates. To put it into demographical

terms, if everyone at URI was engaged in a same-sex relationship, it still would not be close to

the amount of people in RI as a whole who are engaged.

It is important to try and change the views of many Rhode Islanders, so that the RI

Marriage Equality Act can be passed. In order to do so, a debate-like forum should be held in

several of the town halls; Cranston, Narragansett, Westerly, etc. The basis of the meeting will be

informational; we would share facts with the community about how granting same-sex couples

the right to be married would help the community. We will have reading materials (i.e.

pamphlets) available for attendees, and there will be a blocked period of time where parties can
voice their concerns over the issue. However because of the sensitivity of the topic, there will be

several police escorts sitting in on the meeting, ready to remove anyone who gets out of line.

The pamphlet will highlight the decrease in homophobic violence in cities that have

acknowledged the right for marriage equality, as well as the orphan rate decrease. But of course,

I’m preaching to the choir by telling you this. What’s so different about this campaign? Why

should you put your organization’s name on the front page of my campaign? Every little bit

helps. If we convince Rhode Island to allow same-sex marriages, maybe New York with be next,

then Pennsylvania, and hopefully it will grace the country in the years to come.

I was hoping to have a bill passed for same-sex marriages by 2012. That gives us less

than a year to really help the opposed see how beneficial this would be to some, and how

unharmed the unaware would be. It is not that people who have nothing to do with an issue are

left with the choice of whether to let someone be happy or not. That’s the decision they’re

making. Do they want other people in love to be as happy as they are? It is selfish, and we must

point this out to people. The religious all believe this is not what God wanted, but who is to say

his views now? Society is vastly advanced and sophistically, even technologically progressive.

For such a caveman thought to still exist is just that, barbaric.

These town meetings with give people the right to voice their own opinion, to be heard

and considered by both sides of an argument. Hopefully some sort of agreement can be made,

allowing people of the same-sex to enjoy in the fairytale idea of a wedding. Thank you for taking

the time to acknowledge my ideas, and I am excited to get the wheels in motion.

Sincerely,

Marissa Mariotti, Student at the University of Rhode Island