Clay County Histories
Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC
David Hamilton and Bernie Erickson exchanging rings, 2006
Manitoba legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, 9 years before Minnesota’s legislature legalized it here and 11 years before the Supreme Court extended the freedom to North Dakotans. Some Fargo-Moorhead couples were not willing to wait for the USA to catch up to Canada, so they went to Winnipeg to get hitched. Two weddings in particular stand out because they could not be more different. Bernie Erickson and David Hamilton had a beautiful dream wedding. Sherry Carlsrud and Stacy Atkinson’s wedding was more Science Fiction.
David, a music professor at Concordia College, met Bernie, a realtor, in 2002. By 2006, they both knew they had found “the one.” They wanted to get married, even though their marriage would not be recognized by the US government. Both had been married to women before, so they had experience in wedding planning. Both were professionals in their 40s, so they had the means to throw a classy destination wedding in Winnipeg.
Sherry and Stacy met at a Fargo-Moorhead Gay Association dance in 1993. After their first dance, Stacy reported to her friends “She likes Star Wars and she laughed at my jokes.” They bonded over a shared love of Science Fiction and Fantasy. The years passed. They moved in together. They drew up what legal documents they could to protect each other…wills, medical directives, rights that automatically come with a marriage license. In 2011, they found the perfect excuse to collect another protective piece of paper. They would take their vows in Winnipeg at Central Canada ComicCon.
With the help of a Canadian friend, Bernie and David found a pastor, a pianist, and booked the Fort Garry Hotel downtown for more than a dozen close family members. Then Bernie and David rushed back to Fargo to host a large backyard party for friends.
Sherry and Stacy booked a wedding officiant over email. They made friends with a local Sci-Fi fan sitting next to them at the William Shatner Q&A. “So, we’re here to get married,” they announced, “Do you want to be our witness?” Canadian nerds leapt into action! Actress Chase Masterson from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine volunteered as wedding photographer. Their wedding dresses were jeans and black hoodies, but they debated getting married in the Star Wars costumes they brought: Darth Vader and a Tie Fighter Pilot.
The wedding ceremonies were perfect opposites, emphasis on “perfect.” Their experiences coming home were also quite different.
“We were both in professions that were very open to gay individuals,” Bernie said in a recent interview. “It was not an issue at our jobs at all.” David Hamilton and Bernie Erickson could afford to be brave, so they asserted their rights and brought others along with them. When Bernie changed jobs, David convinced Concordia College to honor their foreign marriage certificate and extend health insurance to his husband. In 2015, the couple joined several other North Dakotans in a lawsuit to get recognition of their marriages, and all the legal benefits that come with it. They rallied at the Supreme Court. Life certainly wasn’t easy, but as well-liked community leaders, they had a bit of leverage to do some heavy lifting. Bernie puts it humbly and bluntly: “I’m white and I’m rich, and a lot of doors are open to people like me.”
Stacy only told a couple of coworkers that she got married. “It wasn’t the most gay-friendly place that I was working at,” Stacy said. Sherry told no one. One of her co-workers was a board member of the North Dakota Family Alliance, an organization that was fighting against marriage equality. Sherry was closeted at work.
I truthfully do not want to make this column political, but in a recent interview, Sherry Carlsrud gave an enlightening explanation of how Culture War politics affect real people:
“There’s a particular type of stress and anxiety that never fully goes away when you’re in a marginalized group who is frequently targeted with political attacks, with anti-whatever the group is bills every two to four years. There’s a cycle of extreme stress and…and depression, because, you know, you feel like the world is against you. And then, usually for most of our lives, the anti-LGBT legislation would pass, and you’d feel hopeless and worthless and like a monster kind of …’cause you think that’s how other people perceive you.
“And then, finally around 2013, the tide started to change. For the first time that I can recall, voters actually were more pro-LGBT than anti-LGBT, and they rejected the anti-same-sex marriage amendment in Minnesota. And that was the first time I felt validated as a human being in my own home. And then in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry just as different-sex couples do, and it was recognized throughout the United States, that was, I think, the first time I felt like…like I’m actually a full member of my own home, of the United States, and that there’s a greater chance that the stranger next door will be my friend rather than my enemy.”
On August 1, the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County and the Red River Rainbow Seniors will open an exhibit at the Hjemkomst Center exploring the 10th Anniversary of Marriage Equality in Minnesota.