ASHEVILLE – Rainbow Wedding Network, the publishers of Rainbow Wedding Magazine, are gearing up for a summer full of same-sex wedding and marriage expos in cities across California.
To be held in July, the four back-to-back GLBTQ Wedding and Family Expos and the Same Love, Same Rights Mobile Marriage Summit, will make stops in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Long Beach. The summit and expos will be an interactive forum to motivate and educate attendees about the potential threats to the new marriage rights and will highlight innovative ways to enact real change across the nation.
Over 40 local wedding vendors will participate in each expo and summit event. Other highlights will include music performances, fashion exhibits, wedding planning tips, product samples and informative presentations about the issues concerning marriage equality and adoption by same-sex couples.
“The ruling by the California Supreme Court will be felt all across the country,” said Cindy Sproul, co-owner of RainbowWeddingNetwork.com. “Given that California has no limitations for out-of-state residents who wish to marry, this ruling will impact the state’s economy more broadly than many people now realize. And politically, it will have highly charged consequences either pro-Equal Rights or anti-Equal Rights, from individuals, couples and organizations well beyond the West Coast.”
Sproul has worked in the LGBT community for over 12 years and launched RainbowWedding
Network.com with her partner Marianne Puechl in 2000. Their company has produced 19 wedding expos across the nation and 5,000 copies of their magazine are distributed across the nation.
The four events in California this July will include RainbowWeddingNetwork’s new initiative, the Same Love, Same Rights Mobile Marriage Summit. A rally and open forum for the public, one of the summit’s main goals is to identify activities that individuals can take part in immediately, to create mass change in favor of equal rights for the GLBTQ community. Those attending the rally will have the opportunity to share their ideas on the issues and learn new ways to get involved, both at the state and national levels. Other Mobile Marriage Summit rallies are scheduled for 2008 in Atlanta, St. Petersburg and New York City.
“The topic of marriage rights is such a hot-button issue, more states than ever (including California in November) are considering legislation banning same-sex partnerships,” Sproul said. “We all need to work together, the gay and lesbian community as well as our allies, to enact lasting change in the arena of Tolerance.”
Admission to Rainbow Wedding Network’s events are free.
info: www.rainbowweddingnetwork.com
Photos courtesy of Bilerico.com