Twelve-year-old Evann Orleck-Jetter, the daughter of lesbian moms, testified at the public hearings on marriage equality last month before Vermont’s Joint Senate and House Judiciary Committees. Democracy Now! spoke with her a few days ago and reported, “Many legislators later told Evann and her parents that her testimony had moved them to support the bill.”
I’ve written before about how we must reclaim the ultra-right argument that what they are doing is in the best interests of the children. Orleck-Jetter says it even more convincingly:
The opposition said ‘We’re all about the kids,’ and that just didn’t make any sense to me. If you’re all about the kids, then why don’t you support people who are trying to raise them and have a great family instead of saying that they’re not qualified, and I felt it was so important for me to get up there and say what I felt because I don’t think they really knew what they were saying when they put that out. I think it was a lack of information to say it was about the kids. It hurts me that they are so against my parents getting married. If you think about the kids, then you should think about the kids whose parents just want equal rights and whose kids just want equal rights and to feel accepted in their schools.
Here’s the full interview: