From The Associated Press

Unlikely activists: ACLU draws diverse group for lawsuit

by Brett Zongker

July 13, 2004

Lisa Kebreau, Mikki Mozelle and their son Alex like to play video games on Sundays before they drive into Washington for church services.

"We¹re much more spiritual than we are religious," Kebreau said of their weekly pre-church routine.

Kebreau, a public school teacher in Prince George¹s County and Mozelle, an advertising traffic manager for a Washington television station, live in a small two-story suburban home in a quiet neighborhood with their son and dog.

"We¹re just normal people," Kebreau said.

"We have a home and a family just like everybody else -- we go to work, we go to school." Mozelle added. And the couple is expecting a baby in three months.

But they are among nine same-sex couples who have been denied marriage licenses and are named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against the state by the American Civil Liberties Union.

They never expected to be on the front lines of a political battle, the pair said.

"This is our American dream," Mozelle said. "Legally, I want to marry my wife."

When Kebreau answered a questionnaire from the gay rights group Equality Maryland, she said she didn¹t think she and her partner would be included in the lawsuit.

In Kebreau's mind, the first state lawsuit for marriage rights would be brought by people who had suffered more overt discrimination. "We¹re doing OK," she said.

Kebreau and Mozelle were exactly what ACLU attorneys were looking for.

"We really were just trying to show Marylanders the types of people in Maryland that are harmed," said Paul Cates, director of public education for the ACLU's lesbian and gay rights project.

"The fact that they are raising a child and had another one on the way, we really felt that they spoke to the type of discrimination that same sex couples with families face," Cates said.

When Kebreau and Mozelle discovered their second attempt at artificial insemination was successful and Kebreau was pregnant the fight for legal recognition took on greater meaning.

Without a legal marriage, they drafted a will, acquired joint powers of attorney and named Mozelle temporary guardian of their yet unborn son, Noah. That was "just in case something happens," Kebreau said. The legal process has been expensive and difficult for them, she said.

For same-sex marriage opponents, Kebreau and Mozelle¹s family is anything but normal.

"How can two men and two women have a child?" said State Sen. Larry Haines, of Baltimore and Carroll counties. "I don't consider it a family. I think what they want to do is raise the child up in their lifestyle. I think that¹s abnormal. I think it¹s immoral."

President Bush, in his radio address Saturday, called on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

"If courts create their own arbitrary definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is lost and the institution is
weakened," Bush said.

The remarks drew a response in the pastor¹s sermon at Kebreau and Mozelle's church, which has a black gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender congregation.

"You need to remind them that God created you," said the Rev. Dyan Abena McCray, pastor of the Unity Fellowship Church. "They're actually trying to rewrite a document that was meant to keep discrimination away."

McCray describes the 15 churches of Unity Fellowship across the country as a movement for social justice. Church members from each location are actively involved in the fight for marriage, she said. Fourteen-year-old Alex Kebreau said he thinks his moms should be able to marry.

"It just took me a little while to get used to it," he said. "After that, it was really good."

He said he used to be one of the "stupid kids at school who would laugh at all the gay jokes," he said.

Kebreau starts high school in the fall and one of his moms wants him to go out for football. Alex also plans to rejoin the D.C. Youth Orchestra, and he said he has a girlfriend which requires time as well.

Lisa Kebreau said she's proud of her son. But as she enters what many consider the next civil rights battle, she doesn¹t want him to have to be defensive about his family.

"We don't expect him to take on the world," she said.