Lesbian Couple Together 50 Years: "We're With Her"

Under a Donald Trump presidency, marriages like theirs could be invalidated.

A lesbian couple who recently celebrated their 50th anniversary are featured in a new campaign video for Hillary Clinton: They're with her.

Pearl Berlin, 92, and Lennie Gerber, 80, met in 1964 after being invited to a brunch in Detroit set up by a mutual friend. Their decades-long romance wasn’t love at first sight, but the two women, both Jewish and raised in Brooklyn, recognized kindred spirits.

Love blossomed over the next two years. After finishing her master’s program at the University of Southern California, Gerber got a job working at Wayne State University, the Michigan college where Berlin taught political science. After moving in together in 1966, the two would later move to Massachusetts and then North Carolina, where Berlin was offered a job at the University of North Carolina atGreensboro.

“We are in love and we tell each other that every day,” says Gerber in a 70-second spot for the Clinton campaign.

Although Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, their new home, North Carolina, was slower to evolve. Forty-seven years after falling for each other, Berlin and Gerber finally tied the knot in Greensboro — exchanging gold bands with June 2, 1966, engraved on them, the date of their anniversary.

Three months later, the couple repeated the gesture in Maine — because their union wasn’t recognized back in North Carolina. They challenged the state’s marriage ban as two of the lead plaintiffs on a lawsuit to overturn it.

In 2014, Berlin and Gerber finally won.

“When we got married, I wanted us to do it in our own community,” Gerber says, gushing. “Fast forward to the day when we became legal in North Carolina. It's just amazing. I can't believe it. We are so lucky.”

Berlin adds that their neighbors and friends have been “wonderful.”

Given the couple’s long road to having their love recognized, Gerber further claims that the 2016 race is a critical one. “We have a lot to worry about in terms of this election,” she says.

Gerber is right. If elected, Republican nominee Donald Trump has promised to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would overturn the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on marriage equality, thus nullifying their 2013 union. Given that Berlin has been hospitalized three times in recent years due to a number of falls, keeping those rights — which include being able to visit each other in the emergency room — is critical.

The couple stressed the importance of getting out and making your voice heard on Election Day.

“Every single vote counts,” Gerber says. “You can’t say, ‘Well, my vote doesn’t count,’ because it does! Sometimes elections are very close. You have to go out and get your friends registered, you get registered, and go to the polls and vote.”

But when it comes to who the couple plans to vote for, Berlin says that it’s a no-brainer: They’re casting their ballots for Hillary Clinton.

“Who am I voting for?” Berlin inquires. “Why would you even ask?”

Watch their story in a video produced by the Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina below.