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Gym Membership Battle Lost, Shane May Lobbies for Same Sex Marriage

Shane May's biggest challenge wasn't taking on the family membership policy at the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium. It wasn't becoming an equal rights and marriage equality activist. It was the decision to be Shane May. Sponsored by Grape-Nuts.

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The Cuyahoga Falls native said he pretended to be straight for years and prayed that “God would make me like everyone else,” so the decision to come out as gay after high school graduation was a difficult one.

“When you grow up in such a closed-minded community, it’s a struggle coming to terms with who you are,” May said. “Looking back, I wish I would have just been myself … I have this one life to live, and I am going to be myself.”

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May and his husband, Coty (who were married in Washington, DC), made headlines in 2012 when they sought a family membership to the Natatorium Health and Fitness Center, where Coty undergoes physical therapy for severe leg and nerve injuries he sustained while serving with a U.S. Army medical unit in Iraq.

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Because the exercise facility did not consider the couple's marriage to be legitimate, the Natatorium refused their request.

Their subsequent appeals were unsuccessful. The Cuyahoga Falls Parks Board eventually voted 3-2 against the plan to reword the Natatorium’s family rate structure from “with spouse” to “with spouse or second adult.” The spouse rate applies only to heterosexual couples with marriage licenses recognized by the state of Ohio.

“I was hurt,” May said. “I felt let down by the city I was born and raised in.”

Rather than allowing the board’s decision to discourage him, May is now motivated to tackle the bigger issue: repealing the 2004 constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying in Ohio.

May is the co-leader of Vets & Military Families, and the Summit County team leader of Freedom to Marry Ohio, an organization working to place the Freedom to Marry and Religious Freedom Amendment on the ballot for the November general election. He hopes the amendment will bring marriage equality for he and Coty, and to all Ohioans. 

“As a soldier, [Coty] fought tooth and nail to protect our country and our freedoms,” May said. “To come home and be denied the simplest of freedoms, the freedom to marry whom you choose, blew my mind.”

And what will May do if he achieves his goal?

“Sit back and enjoy my ‘legal’ married life, like anyone else,” he said.

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