Shelley Bailes - 2023 (Brinley)
Davis resident Shelly Bailes has made an impact on the LGBTQ+ community not only in Davis and across Yolo County, but in California and the nation as a whole.
Her decades of work in striving for respect and acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community is why she has been named the 2024 recipient of the Brinley Award.
The Brinley Award is a Davis community award that recognizes outstanding service benefitting the city.
“Shelly is a tremendous trailblazer and advocate who I have looked up to in this community as an LGBTQ+ activist myself,” said 2024 District 2 City Council nominee Dillan Horton. “Her willingness to protest, rally and organize for marriage equality, along with her insistence on living her life out and proud in full technicolor changed the game for our community. Shelly is a great role model to many in Davis’ queer community, and many others who want to take change into their own hands.”
If you know Bailes, you likely know her late wife, Ellen Pontac. Bailes and Pontac met in 1973 in New York and moved to Davis to raise their children.
In the 1980’s, the duo’s public political activism emerged in their support of local civil rights protections for gay and lesbian residents. An ordinance was approved by the city in 1986.
On the tenth anniversary of the passage of that ordinance, Bailes and Pontac introduced the annual gay pride event to Davis and continued to organize it for many years thereafter. The Davis Phoenix Coalition has since taken over putting on this celebration.
Come the new millennium, Bailes and Pontac became very active in the marriage equality movement, locally, regionally and nationally.
Bailes participated in the local effort to oppose California state Prop. 22 in 2000, which sought to prohibit same-sex marriages. She and Pontac bravely shared their relationship with the public and discussed with the public various ways in which society discriminated against the LGBTQ+ community by denying marriage to same-sex partnerships.
“The Davis community has always been special to us,” said Bailes. “The community has always been accepting of our relationship before it was common. We lived our life openly and knew that we couldn’t do that in so many places. We would walk down the street holding hands and knew we were safe. The most important thing that we were able to do in Davis was be out as a gay couple. We knew that was the way to change hearts and minds, so we did that with any opportunity we could. Davis is my home and I love it.”
In 2004, the couple were married in San Francisco but this was invalidated by the California Supreme Court shortly after.
For several years after this, Bailes and Pontac, along with other same-sex couples went to the Yolo County Clerk on Valentine’s Day to attempt to be legally married. The County Clerk by law was obligated to deny this request.
Bailes and Pontac were the first same-sex couple married in Yolo County and one of the first in California when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned California Proposition 8 in 2013.
Current California Governor Gavin Newsom invited the couple to speak at the state Democratic Convention in 2014. They also starred in a Hillary Clinton campaign video in 2015.
“Shelly Bailes is an incredible humanitarian who cares about the rights of all people,” said 2022 Davis Citizen of the Year and Director/Founder of Culture Co-op Sandy Holman. “She, along with her partner Ellen, spent their lives ensuring that equity, justice and equality was always kept in the highest regard and particularly advocated for the LGBTQIA+ rights. I learned a lot about never giving up by watching Shelly and Ellen - lessons that will last a long time.”
In addition to her activism in the LGBTQ+ community, Bailes is a former member of the city’s Human Relations Commission, on the board of directors of Davis Media and on the board of Davis Community Meals.
She has also worked as a volunteer with the annual Davis Food Co-op Holiday Meal, as an usher at the Mondavi Center, with the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Center (now Empower Yolo), with organizations in support of LGBTQ+ youth at Davis High School and UC Davis and has regularly participated in Davis’ downtown peace vigils.
"Courage is not the absence of fearlessness, but rather having full knowledge of the peril and charging forward anyway,” said Davis City Councilmember Gloria Partida. “Shelly, along with her wife Ellen, epitomized courage. Together they charged forward to champion marriage equality in the face of bigotry at the peril of their own safety to forge a path for love. Shelly continues to champion and inspire our community to speak up for what is right. When my son was attacked in a hate crime 10 years ago, Shelly and Ellen showed up at the vigil with the biggest rainbow flag I have ever seen.”
“A year later, Shelly graciously and a little gleefully, emptied her garage of all the pride items they had accumulated putting on Davis's original pride picnic and passed the torch to the Davis Phoenix Coalition to continue the pride celebration in Davis. We put on Davis Pride with the full knowledge that we do so because Shelly bravely asked for the celebration so many years ago in front of the jeers and hecklers of City Council at a time when courage was needed to do so."
Bailes has not only made an impact in the history of the LGBTQ+ community but also in its future.
“At a time when some have made our children targets of their intolerance and ignorance, Shelly continues her life work to embrace our better selves, work with the younger LGBTQ generation and fight to protect the caring community she helped build,” said former DJUSD Board Trustee Richard Harris.”
“Being happy with who you are is the most important thing you can do for yourself,” said Bailes. “What we (she and Pontac) found is being “out” was good for us and for the community. Of course, I would recommend to only do that when you feel it is safe. Changing hearts and minds is the best thing that you can do for the gay community.”
Being named the 2024 Brinley Award recipient is not something that Bailes takes lightly.
“Getting the Brinley award is an incredible honor,” she remarked. “I only wish that my wife Ellen was here to enjoy it with me too. To be recognized as someone special is very humbling.”
— From the Davis Enterprise - Rebecca Wasik, Enterprise Staff Writer, December 30, 2023
