On the first day of trial, AFER plaintiff Sandy Stier testified about her relationship with Kris Perry.  She explained why they wanted to get married, and how their domestic partnership is inadequate.

Watch Jaime Lee Curtis reenact Sandy Stier’s testimony during the Los Angeles premiere of “8” the play.

Testimony Highlights

“I’m just trying to get the rights that the Constitution already says I have.”

“Well, I’m convinced [that I’m a lesbian], because at 47 years old I have fallen in love one time and it’s with Kris.”

“I don’t have access to the words that describe my relationship right now. I’m a 45-year-old woman. I have been in love with a woman for 10 years and I don’t have a word to tell anybody about that.”

“[T]here is certainly nothing about domestic partnership as an institution—not even an institution, but as a legal agreement that indicates the love and commitment that are inherent in marriage and it doesn’t have anything to do for us with the nature of our relationship and the type of enduring relationship we want it to be.”

“[M]arriage is about making a public commitment to the world, to your partner and to—what I hope is someday my wife, to our friends, our family, our society, our community, our parents. It’s just—to me, it’s—it’s the way we tell them and each other that this is a lifetime commitment or it’s not—we are not girlfriends. We are not partners. We are married.

“And I have to say, having been married for 12 years and been in a domestic partnership for 10 years, it’s different. It’s not the same. I want—I don’t want to have to explain myself and have—in a way that would indicate there must be something wrong with me or I wouldn’t have to explain myself to anybody who has some reason they may need to know.”

“[Marriage] would provide me with a sense of inclusion in the social fabric.”

Sandy felt like the Proposition 8 campaign messages “used to sort of try to educate people or convince people that there was a great evil to be feared and that evil must be stopped and that evil is us, I guess. … And the very notion that I be part of what others need to protect their children from was just — it was more than upsetting. It was sickening, truly. I felt sickened by that campaign.”

“[Domestic partnership] doesn’t have anything to do for us with the nature of our relationship and the type of enduring relationship we want it to be. It’s just a legal document.”