Tonia Castaneda-Rose and Jenna Rose met while working at a private school just a month before the pandemic hit their hometown of Palestine, Texas. The two women started dating in March 2020 just as Covid-19 cases climbed across the United States, and they later lost their jobs when their school closed permanently.

As a polyamorous couple, the pair’s first month together was shared with other partners. Weeks into their relationship, Rose’s previous long-term relationship ended abruptly and Castaneda-Rose’s father died suddenly. “She and I held each other together during some of the hardest moments of our lives,” Rose says. “We quickly bonded and grew together.” By July, the couple started planning a wedding with a date set in 2022.

When conservative Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court, queer people started to worry about their futures. Barrett is only 48 years old, and her lifetime appointment sets her up to influence the lives of Americans for decades. Her confirmation solidified a strong six-to-three conservative majority on the court, and some of those conservative justices have already dissented on rulings that protect the rights of LGBTQ people.

Advocates point to Barrett’s conservative Christian beliefs as a possible threat, noting her defense of the justices’ marriage-equality dissents and her misgendering of trans people as proof that she might not respect and protect queer people. As an “originalist,” she interprets the Constitution through the lens of those who wrote the document, without considering modern experiences or cultural shifts. Activists explain that those historical leaders did not understand or affirm the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ and marginalized people, underlining the dangers of using this perspective to interpret today’s laws.

Barrett has already started hearing cases that will decide the fates of queer people, with a case about discrimination in the foster care system pending adjudication after oral arguments were heard November 4.

“We’re concerned about other rights we might lose and what other discrimination might be legalized,” Rose, 30, says. As a transgender woman in Texas, she says, it’s challenging to look for a new position following her recent job loss. She fears that protections afforded to her by the recent ruling protecting LGBTQ people from employment discrimination could be revoked.

Marriage offers legal protections for couples who could experience discrimination. Castaneda-Rose, 23, hopes their legal union will safeguard her child, who is not biologically related to her wife. “If something were to happen to me, what would they do with our daughter?” she wonders.

Rose, an avid motorcyclist, says she’s concerned about possible accidents and wants to guarantee that her partner can make decisions about her care and visit her in the hospital if there is an emergency. It is critical for transgender women to have an advocate in healthcare, she says. “It’s very scary living in a world where there are constant threats to your rights, especially your basic right to medical care,” she adds.

Rose and Castaneda-Rose reached out to Raynie Castaneda, a leader in the pagan community who planned to officiate their wedding ceremony, explaining their fear that they might not be able to wed if marriage equality is overturned. Castaneda, a pagan witch, invited them to a public ceremony she planned for queer couples in a town square in Tyler, Texas.

On Sunday, November 15, five couples, including this pair, were married as an act of protest and solidarity. “The message is: We exist,” Castaneda says. “You can’t legislate our existence away.”

Rose explains that living in a deeply religious part of east Texas comes with risks for openly queer people. “Hate crimes in Texas and political tension make queer people feel more unsafe than in other areas of the U.S.,” she says. “Living here, you have to be prepared to defend yourself—philosophically, politically or physically.”

A Christian group walked throughout the space during the wedding ceremony, praying aloud and reading from the Bible. “I’ve had threats and harassment,” Rose says. “We’ve been told that we’re evil for subjecting our children to our unholy union.”

Rick Taylor, of Philadelphia, is no stranger to standing up for LGBTQ rights when opposed by religious institutions. In 2013, he married Bill Gatewood in a ceremony that protested the firing of a Pennsylvania pastor from the United Methodist Church for officiating his son’s marriage to a man. The rite was performed at his church in Philadelphia by 65 religious leaders, including 50 Methodist pastors who risked losing their credentials for performing the ceremony. Marriage equality wasn’t protected by the Supreme Court until 2015, so the couple had to wait more than a year for their marriage to be legally recognized.

Taylor, 62, lost Gatewood to heart disease, and then began dating Roberto Soler, 52, in 2018. As the Senate was about to begin Barrett’s confirmation hearings, he asked Soler to marry him, seeking peace of mind in case marriage equality is reversed. “I decided I’m not going to give them a chance to tell me I can’t do this again,” Taylor says. “They didn’t get to push me into a box the first time, and I’m not going to give them an opportunity to try it a second time. If they’re going to change the rules, we need to get a jump on it.”

Taylor says this relationship is different from his last. His late husband experienced rampant homophobia growing up, which led to internalized feelings of shame. “I spent our entire lives together trying to get him to understand that [being gay] is not a bad thing,” Taylor says. He notes that American culture seemed to be becoming more affirming of queer people and more supportive of those with marginalized experiences in recent years—until Trump gave a platform to those who oppose such progress. “I was beginning to see things get better, and then I started to watch it slip away,” he says. “I just want all people—gay and lesbian and transgender and immigrant—to have the same rights as every other American.” He says this year’s close presidential election demonstrates that so many people in the U.S. don’t hold those same beliefs.

Taylor and Soler are currently planning an intimate wedding to be officiated by his pastor, Robin Hynicka, who presided over his first marriage. The pair plans to wed in mid-December with a quiet ceremony at their home in Manayunk, a Philadelphia neighborhood just a few miles from Arch Street United Methodist Church, the site of Taylor’s first wedding. He says marriage will offer him peace of mind.

Castaneda echoes his sentiment. “Marriage protects families, full stop,” she says. “It protects spouses and loved ones—medically, monetarily and spiritually.”