Watermark Editor, 2009-2015
During my decade as a freelance contributor, staff writer, bureau chief and eventual editor of Watermark, I saw my fair share of inspiring and intriguing stories.
We are and always will be one community with so many individual stories that make us a collective. It was an honor to share them all during my various roles at Watermark for 10 years.
I always compared my various roles as a Watermark contributor to that of a documentarian for the LGBTQ+ community. It was always an honor, regardless of the headline.
As editor, I had the unique honor of directing the paper’s team during one of the biggest historical milestones for our community — Florida’s legalization of marriage equality. The state’s ban on same-sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional in August 2014, almost a year before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges that all states must recognize same-sex marriages and issue licenses for them.
The news was surreal and while we covered it at Watermark, the reality of it really didn’t hit me until Jan. 6, 2015, when I covered actual same-sex couples exchanging wedding vows in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota.
I woke up early that day and hit all three cities. At each stop I met dozens of couples celebrating the day they were finally getting their marriage licenses and legally becoming spouses.
I arrived in Sarasota just before 9 a.m. Same-sex couples were lined up for marriage licenses at the Sarasota County Courthouse and soon said “I do” with the help of local leader Cindy Barnes, who became a notary just so she could help marry couples as they exited that building. Emotions ran high — but they were all exuberant.
In downtown Tampa, there were 50 or so same-sex couples who were legally wed by then-Clerk of Court Pat Frank outside on Joe Chillura Courthouse Square. There was a feeling of joy, excitement and love that was a far cry from some of the anger and depression that had been felt on that square before then, when earlier County Commissions had shot down equality measures in very public ways.
In St. Petersburg, I attended and photographed two men celebrating their wedding conducted by then-Mayor Rick Kriseman at City Hall. It was another unbelievable moment that drew a crowd, brought out tears of joy and made the LGBTQ+ community and our supporters proud of our state.
That day, driving throughout Tampa Bay and Sarasota, was one of my happiest days as editor at Watermark and one of my proudest moments as a gay man. A few short months later, I stepped away from to further my writing career.
I have always looked upon that first day of marriages as a high point in my career, and in my life.
