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Always A Bride’s Maid, Never A Groom
By Ryan Gierach
Source: WeHoNews.com

Robin Tyler has so many irons in the fire with running a business, playing a central role in the LGBT community’s major rights struggles and being a good partner to her spouse and would-be wife, Diane Olson, that most people react with wonder when they hear that she plans a return to stage.

“Of course, it is comedy,” she said. “The first act is from a one-woman show I did in New York with a show called Torch Song Trilogy. The critics said that my show, based on wanting to marry a same-sex partner, was too unrealistic, even for comedy.”

That was then and this is now, of course. Today Ms. Tyler is locked in a struggle with the State of California over her and her partner Diane Olson’s right to marry one another. Ms Tyler has revamped the show, adding important updated information from the ensuing years.

“I have now added a second act, multi-media, with slides and videos. For samples, see robintyler.com,” she said. “[The second] act, still comedy, includes a history of the LGBT movement, including the history of same-sex marriage, ending of course, with our lawsuit which is now going to the California Supreme Court.”

In fact, in the days between her first and second shows on the 10th and 17th of February, on Valentine’s Days, she and Ms. Olson, along with her attorney Gloria Allred and other Same-Sex Marriage proponents will gather for an annual protest at Beverly Hills Courthouse. Once more they will try to obtain Marriage Licenses, fully expecting to be refused – this year.

This year’s annual protest will take place at 10 AM on Feb. 14 (Valentine's Day-Marriage Equality day) at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, 9355 Burton Way, Beverly Hills.

“We announced the lawsuit on Feb. 12, 2004, at 9 AM in front of the same Courthouse,” Ms Tyler said. “We proceeded to file the first lawsuit in California for marriage equality. The City of San Francisco, LAMBDA, ACLU, AND NCLR subsequently consolidated their cases into ours, with Gloria Allred still representing the couples in Los Angeles, and the other organizations representing the couples (many of whom we are friends with) in San Francisco.

“The cases were argued in Superior Court in San Francisco, where we won,” she said proudly, “Meanwhile, the California legislature passed a bill for same-sex marriage, but Governor Schwarzenegger refused to sign it. We lost 2-1 at the Court of Appeals, but, in Dec. 2006, the California Supreme Court decided to hear the case, thus nullifying the negative decision of the Court of Appeals.

Ms. Tyler is known lately for her activism; she began StopDrLaura.com (the group that successful stopped Laura Schlessingers’s television show). “But,” she asserts, “I am also a performer. I was the first out lesbian or gay comic on television, records, and stage. There were many other gay comics, but they were not out, nor political. (Moms Mabley, Bel Barth, Rusty Warren, Michel Greer, etc.).

Thus, approaching her monumental civil struggle in the courts on stage is perfectly natural to her, especially given that she had the first act already completed. And Hollywood straddling Valentine’s Day seemed the natural place for her to begin her tour.

“West Hollywood is important to me and the Marriage Equality battle because gay men were my biggest following back when I first did the show,” she said. “I’m actually a drag queen from way back.”

She claims to pull no punches in the new second act. “The fact is, it isn’t a politically correct show,” she said. “It dishes the whole movement. It’s very dishy and akin to Marget Cho or Woody Allen.”

The Feb 10 is sold out as of this writing, so hurry to buy your tickets.

ACME Comedy Theater, 135 N. La Brea, Hollywood, CA, 90036 (street & valet parking). Buy Tix online at robintyler.com or call 818.893.4075. Tickets $20 – Reservations STRONGLY suggested.