Q&A: Kris Perry, Sandy Stier, plaintiffs in Proposition 8 case

Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, two of four plaintiffs in the Hollingsworth v. Perry Supreme Court case, sat down with The Daily Princetonian before a lecture on Thursday to discuss the importance of civic engagement, their daily lives after the case and why they don’t necessarily view themselves as activists in light of LGBTQ+ awareness.

Daily Princetonian: Why did you agree to come to the University today?

Kris Perry:Well, the combination actually, for me, was the unique invitation — both the political group and the [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] group together. We’re interested in both, and we felt that the case was influential for both. We are also new to the East Coast and we’re sort of exploring, and it seemed like a great opportunity to also get to see Princeton.

Sandy Stier: We’ve done a few conversations at other colleges, and they’re always great audiences, and I feel like it’s so important to understand these legal and/or political processes and work on both sides of a team. Especially in an era where we see so much political polarization in the media constantly, it’s important for young people to understand that there are different ways to get the job done. We have this bipartisan legal approach, and we had a bipartisan team and we were successful and it’s an example of how that has been successful, and we hope that people will learn from this and try to use this approach in other areas, as well.

DP: What kind of obstacles were you faced with on your journey to the California Supreme Court?

SS: Just the not knowing. You never know the outcome, and we didn’t always have the full support of the LGBT community either. Not everybody agreed that it was time for a legal approach, and because of that, it created a sort of division between [LGBT organizations] and our team. While we understood those divisions, we also had the right team to move forward and be successful.

KP: The biggest obstacle was worrying about not winning. The beauty of being in a case like this, people look to you for your story and they want your story to resonate, but we could have also been associated with the case that didn’t win.

DP: What has life been like for you two since Proposition 8 was struck down?

KP: It’s been as busy as ever. Our youngest boys finished high school and went to college right after the ruling. Sandy and I started packing up our house in Berkeley and have since moved to Washington, D.C., which is a big adventure for us in our early fifties.

SS: It’s also really changed our friendship circles. We’ve become more involved with people who are working on these advocacy issues, and it’s really opened our eyes to the importance of that work, and we probably have a deeper appreciation for civil rights than we did before.

DP: You’ve said before that you don’t view yourselves as activists. Why is that?

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KP: Because we’re not. In my opinion, an activist is someone who dedicates basically all of their time, whether it’s professional or personal time, to a cause that they feel deeply passionate about. We were plucked out of an ordinary life. We still hold onto it, and it’s what makes us the happiest, the life we had before the case. We can be activists in this “once in a while,” but it isn’t an “all the time.”

SS: I wouldn’t have called either of us activists before we came to the case. We were mothers, I’m a public service worker in healthcare, Kris was a public service worker in early education, that’s what we were. We weren’t leading anything, we were participating.

DP: Legislation like Proposition 8 only gets stricken down thanks to people like you. How important would you say it is for every citizen to get involved in these movements around them?

KP: Civic engagement, being an informed citizen, and frankly, being a voter, in my mind are very important responsibilities we all have as citizens. The Prop 8 case is a perfect example of not enough engagement on the part of enough people. We had become passive in California about these kinds of issues and we took them for granted. We lost! It was a wake-up call. I think voters … should be thinking really hard about ways to protect the things they don’t want to lose.

SS: What everybody can do is have an opinion at the dining room table, respond to somebody on the bus, to speak their truth and stand up and support people who you feel need to be supported. I think every voice matters a great deal in the micro-climate of where you live, and the voices that get elevated to the federal level are important. I mean, the President reads letters from constituents, and he responds to them. Every voice matters, much more than we think.

DP: In what other areas of LGBTQ issues would you like to see improvement?

KP: Well the Equality Act, which is pending right now, would do a lot to address the remaining issues I have surrounding employment protection, housing protections and childcare protections that frankly so many couples, even if they’re married now, do not have as individuals. It’s the next frontier of LGBTQ+ rights, and included in that, I think, is the protection of transgendered people and that I believe, is the same effort around full equality. We need to get basic civil rights in place and then we need to protect them, probably forever.

SS: The issues that I work on somewhat through my work is issues facing youth. Gay youth represent about 40 percent of the runaway and homeless population in America. We need to help them reach their full potential. They’re being kicked out of their homes and being bullied at school, then dropping out of school, even being forced out of school because school is not a safe place for them. It’s something we have not been successful at solving.

DP: How do you propose that we bring about these improvements?

KP: We can do a lot at the policy level to establish that identity politics are bad politics. We shouldn’t be dividing people based on some trait or some characteristic, and instead we should be looking to create equality and fairness for all groups. Policy makers are in a unique position to do that. Voters put them there and keep them there. We should be doing more to keep these people accountable because we put them in these positions of trust and to see that we put them there to protect all of us and if I’m not protected, there’s lots of people who aren’t protected.

SS: I think that for anybody, on a college campus or a high school campus, if you take the safety and well-being of your fellow students seriously and make that a priority, that’s what has to happen. I mean, you’re not going to have rape on campus as much if men turn to other men and say “no.” The way to reduce bullying is for the general population to not put up with it. So everybody has a responsibility to protect their LGBT students and anyone who is vulnerable in any way.

DP: How did it feel to finally get married legally?

KP: Oh yeah, there’s that! The getting married part has always been the point, and it’s been great. So much of what we worried about and didn’t have yet is over with, and we’re enjoying all the good things that come from feeling settled and secure. We waited so long and fought so hard, it’s great.

SS: The most fun thing, though, is seeing the young couples. That’s really fun.