SALT LAKE CITY -- It’s been about five months since Emily Sutherland and Jane Hoffman were married in Utah, but today, they’re still fighting to build a family with their two young sons.
“Emotional roller coaster doesn’t even come close," Jane Hoffman said. "We win, we get knocked back. We’re up, we get knocked down. We think we’re home safe and we get stomped on."
On Thursday, the couple spent the afternoon at the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum in Salt Lake City for an event hosted by Utah Unites for Marriage.
They met with families facing similar setbacks, not to commiserate, but to celebrate how far they’ve come in the battle for same sex marriage.
“We want it, for them, to go through,” said Madison Ayoso, who is a senior at the University of Utah.
She and her brother never thought it was strange that they were raised by two mothers.
“When this first started happening, they started to say that two moms couldn’t raise children as good as straight parents. That made me mad,” said Ayoso’s brother, Bejamin Farrar.
With their parents watching, they told the small crowd gathered at the museum that their success and happiness in life is because of how they were raised.
“There’s a bit, as a mother, that hurts that they would have to speak. But I’m so proud of them,” said Sally Farrar.
While all are anxiously awaiting a ruling on Amendment 3 from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, they are doing so as family, something the outcome will never change.
“We feel pretty jerked around already. So, we’re strengthened and prepared for the long haul,” Hoffman said.
