On Jan. 31, 2011, Zach Wahls addressed the Iowa House Judiciary Committee in a public hearing regarding a proposed Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage in Iowa.  Wahls was 19 years old and is the son of a same-sex couple.  Hours later, his speech was posted on YouTube, went viral and changing Wahls’ life.
Wahls was unaware that an intern for the Democratic Committee at the hearing had recorded Wahls’ poignant speech about the life he has had with his two moms.  The next day, Wahls awoke to a flood of emails, Facebook messages, friend requests and more pokes than he’d prefer.  Wahls turned into an internet sensation and his testimony ended with a phrase suported by many: “The sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.”
Ashley Defazio, a junior majoring in broad field science with an emphasis in history, has admired Wahls since the day she saw his testimony a year ago.
“Zach Wahls is a phenomenal human being and everyone should strive to be more like him,” Defazio said.  “I really enjoyed the whole presentation because he didn’t just throw out scientific facts to persuade the audience.  He used his personal experience to connect and help understand why marriage equality matters to him.”
While visiting University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Wahls spoke about his experiences before his testimony made him famous and what family means to him.  Wahls delved deep into his personal life and discussed his beliefs as to why the disagreement of gay marriage still exists in society today.
Jenny McLean, sophomore music education major, liked Wahls’ approach to voicing his beliefs of marriage equality.
“I liked it because he displayed how comments and other usage of insulting terms is offensive to the LBGT community, as well as allies of LBGT,” McLean said.
McLean was also pleased with Wahls’ way of addressing the information.
“He was very easy to connect to for a college-aged audience because he’s our age and knew how to engage with us,” McLean said.
Elizabeth Burgin, secretary of UW-Platteville’s Alliance, was pleased with the coincidental planning of Zach Wahls’ presentation and Rainbow Rave landing on the same weekend.  The theme of the Rainbow Rave this year was bullying and the keynote speaker, Jamie Nabozny, spoke about how he was bullied through his time in school.
“I was amazed at the turnout of Zach Wahls’ presentation,” said Burgin.  “It just shows how society is more accepting now of the LGBT community than it has been in the past. I felt the most important part of what Wahls said was when he said he didn’t expect to be presenting this topic for too long into his future because hopefully it won’t be a big deal later on.”
For more information about Zach Wahls, visit zachwahls.com. For more information about the United We Stand Lecture Series, visituwplatt.edu/residence-life.