Marriage Equality symbol from the Human Rights campaign
The Supreme Court decided on two huge cases regarding LGBT rights today.
First, they ruled that the Clinton-era so-called Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. That means the federal government cannot reject the marital status of same sex couples who were married in states that permit same sex marriage. That means the federal government must provide the rights and privileges of marriage to married same sex couples.
Second, in a more complex decision, they rejected an appeal to a lower court’s decision on California’s Proposition 8 (the ballot initiative negating marriage rights to same sex couples). There’s a double negative there (triple negative actually), but the upshot is that proponents of Prop 8 lost their bid to appeal the lower court ruling. Same sex couples who were married before Prop 8 retain their marital status. Same sex couples in California can get married and receive full state (and now federal) rights.
I have linked a more detailed article on the Supreme Court rulings from NPR here.
It is a good thing I am off from work this week because I don’t think I would be able to do anything productive besides celebrate and share my joy over these historic rulings.
I have been an LGBT activist pretty much since the day I came out. That’s over twenty years. I was one of those gays who was actually very passionate about social justice before I came out, including LGBT rights. Even while I was not ready to accept myself as gay and to accept the ramifications for that, I felt deeply in my heart that it was wrong to treat people unfairly simply because they were not the norm, the majority, or just plain popular.
I say all that to explain why today’s rulings mean so much to me. I remember speculating with friends some ten years ago: when would LGBT rights be fully realized in America? We were all idealists, but none of us said that it would happen this soon (if you can call 10 years soon). We predicted that states like New York and California would recognize same-sex marriage. We predicted that employment non-discrimination laws would probably make some progress, even in the South. Most of us thought that marriage, adoption, and freedom from discrimination would happen in our lifetimes, but not until we were very old.
We figured that the non-LGBT majority in this country — some 90-99 percent of the population, depending on what studies you look at — had much too far to go in their understanding and acceptance of us to support our rights.
Our LGBT allies have shown that we had not given them enough credit.
I like what Melissa Etheridge had to say about the Supreme Court decisions in her interview today with CNN*, and specifically responding to the question: how is it possible for so much progress to happen in such a short time? Go back 10 years, and especially 20 or 30 years, and public support for LGBT rights was below the 50 percent mark.
Etheridge spoke about the importance of LGBTs coming out and changing public opinion. That was something that felt impossible for many of us to do in the 1980s, but one courageous act inspires another.
For me, coming out in the early 90s was made possible by meeting and getting to know other openly LGBT people. There weren’t any rock stars or film/TV celebrities or pro athletes to look up to. Happily, there are many now, and they are making an enormous difference.
Why today’s decisions also mean so much to me is because 12 years ago my partner and I committed to living our lives together, becoming a family, honoring our relationship as something sacred and permanent — everything we understood marriage to mean although our “commitment ceremony” conferred no legal status.
Two years ago, when New York State expanded marriage to include same-sex couples, Genaro and I went down to the Queens County civil court and got a marriage certificate. That enabled us to file state taxes jointly as a married couple (not exactly a benefit by the way; more of an obligation) and for me to carry my husband on my medical insurance for a period when he needed it.
But federal laws trump state laws. If something happened to one of us — gods forbid — there would be no recognition of our relationship as it relates to medical decisions, social security benefits, inheritance, etc..
I have woken up to a day when we don’t have to worry about those things anymore. I’m stupefied. I’m enthralled. I’m so proud to be part of the LGBT civil rights movement.
*I couldn’t find an article on-line with Melissa Etheridge’s soundbite regarding the importance of LGBTs coming out. Please share it with me if you can find it.
