On April 22, 2009, I watched with awe as pro-marriage equality forces gathered to testify before a legislative committee in Maine. The breadth and depth of the testimony, coming as it did in the 3 minute segments allotted to each speaker, ably represented the wide diversity of voices in Maine and this country supporting marriage equality.
The legislature later deliberated and voted to support marriage equality and the governor signed the bill. But it wasn’t long before the forces opposed to marriage equality gathered enough signatures to put the issue of equality for a minority, in this case LGBT people, on the ballot in November 2009.
Labor Day has passed and Maine, the Vacationland state, is now entering into a period of fierce struggle around marriage equality. The same hardball players who wrested marriage equality from the people of California are in Maine and spinning their old tales. Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the major architects of the inequality campaign in California, are running the show in Maine. Major funds have come in from the National Organization for Marriage, Focus on the family, the Knights of Columbus, and the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Maine.
Maine is 29% Catholic (higher than the nation at 24%) and the Catholics are organized. They are the largest religious group in the state, probably in part because of the high concentration of French-Canadians. Mormons make up 1% of the population but they are from a religious tradition that draws heavily on Mormon resources in other parts of the country. So, factoring in the Catholic/Mormon nexus with the media and campaign savvy of Schubert Flint, Maine is bracing for what we call in New England a fierce Nor’easter. Sebastian Junger wrote about The Perfect Storm. I see another one brewing.
A small paragraph in the Boston Globe on September 7th noted:
“The Catholic Church in Maine is stepping up its effort to defeat a gay marriage law in November. The WBLZ News Center reported that the Roman Catholic diocese of Portland is asking its parishes to take a special second collection next weekend to help pay for a campaign on a referendum that could reverse the same-sex marriage law passed by the state Legislature. Money raised in the effort will go to Stand for marriage Maine, which is leading the effort to repeal the law.”
The separation of church and state has little meaning in marriage equality battles across the country. Catholics like to call their church, The Church. Soon they may have all of us doing it. We need to stave off foes of inequality and foes of the separation of church and state. They are one and the same in Maine.
Ted Kennedy, a champion of so many causes for equality for such diverse communities, is gone. But his legacy and example will continue to inspire many of us for years to come.
On November 18, 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in the Goodridge v DPH decision, Kennedy was one of the first voices to speak out and laud the decision. In Courting Equality we captured that moment. “Senator Edward Kennedy greeted the Goodridge decision as ‘a welcome milestone on the road to full civil rights for all our citizens.’” He added emphatically, “Gay couples deserve these rights as well” (p. 22)
While a Catholic, he saw the problems with that faith’s discrimination against LGBT people. Like his brother, John F. Kennedy, and the founders of this country, he understood that religion has no place in government.
As the Goodridge decision captured the imaginations of LGBT people across the country to strive for the equality newly granted in Massachusetts, religion-driven conservatives threw up roadblocks in state after state. Claiming that our equality impinged on their religious values, these cultural conservatives held enormous sway. Despite their acrimonious uproar about marriage equality, Kennedy stuck with his principled position.
In 2005, he said “On the issue of gay rights, I continue to strongly support civil marriage. It is wrong for our civil laws to deny any American the basic right to be part of a family, to have loved ones with whom to build a future and share life’s joys and tears, and to be free from the stain of bigotry and discrimination.” Kennedy brought the values of Massachusetts to the national stage.
He was one of the few who voted in the Senate against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) in 1996. And sometimes in the Senate he pushed values that Massachusetts had not quite caught up with like a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
A great champion for LGBT people is gone. The person who will attempt to fill his shoes must be as committed to equality.
Obama hasn’t given us much of what he promised on the campaign trail but he did give 250 “professional” gays a swanky cocktail party at the White House to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Stonewall. Oh, if only those drags queens from the Stonewall Inn who wielded their high heels to beat cops over the head could have been there, my, my.
It’s easy, way too easy, to be critical of Obama but I do want to laud an official act that the administration took that began to recognize the LGBT community’s longstanding discrimination in employment and to apologize for it.
John Berry the administration’s most senior gay official, director of the Office of Personnel Management, offered an apology to one of the most brilliant and courageous pioneers in our civil rights movement, Frank Kameny. Kameny lost his government job for being gay and he fought back all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. He fought back when it wasn’t fashionable and he spent his life fighting for LGBT rights. Berry acknowledged this in a letter to Kameny.
“In what we know today was a shameful action, the United States Civil Service Commission in 1957 upheld your dismissal from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation,” Berry’s letter states. “… And by virtue of the authority vested in me as Director of the Office Of Personnel Management, it is my duty and great pleasure to inform you that I am adding my support … for the repudiation of the reasoning of the 1957 finding by the United States Civil Service Commission to dismiss you from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation. Please accept our apology for the consequences of the previous policy of the United States government.”
“Apology accepted,” Kameny replied.
This apology to Kameny makes me feel more sanguine about the Obama administration.
Check out Kameny and see some vintage footage of a protest that he and Barbara Gittings mounted in the early 1960s outside the White House.
Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis represent one of the most compelling stories in the California civil rights struggle for equality for all people. Gaffney’s parents are of mixed heritage so once upon a time in California, they could not marry. Gaffney and his partner of over 20 years also could not marry because they are a same-sex couple. They decided to fight for civil marriage for same-sex couples in California and eventually became one of the plaintiff couples.
When the historic CA Supreme Court decision came down on May 15, 2008, Gaffney and Lewis made their wedding plans for June 2008. They are one of the lucky California gay couples that is married. Their story is historic. Check them out:
The sky has not fallen. Heather still has her two mommies. The religious right is still predicting dire consequences. Thus far their crystal ball has been very murky at best to downright wrong at worst.
As of September 2008, 12, 350 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts. The latest reports by UCLA’s Williams Institute indicate that “after five years of extending marriage to gay couples, new studies show Massachusetts has attracted highly-skilled workers and experienced an economic boost of over $100 million.”
The Williams Institute continues to do important research indicating the economic impact of marriage equality on states like Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire. Now they have five years of data about Massachusetts and the results are convincing about the wedding industry windfall. But even more exciting is the data they present from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey that shows the enhanced attractiveness of our state to the “creative class.”
According to the census survey, same-sex couples in the creative class are 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts since marriage equality became legal in 2004. So, we have Cape Cod, the beautiful Berkshires, world class universities and research institutes, historic cities galore, museums for everything, sports teams without parallel, and marriage equality.
Who wouldn’t want to move here? Maybe the religious right who think the sky will fall any day now? But folks who are interested in contributing to an even greater Commonwealth and living where they are part of the “we” in “we the people” are coming. That’s more good news on this Fifth Anniversary.
 On May 13, Beacon Broadside posted this commentary by Karen. Things are changing so fast, that by the time your read this, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch may have signed New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage bill. According to the New York Times, a compromise was reached today.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, New England feels like a roller coaster hurtling toward equality. On April 6, two more states– Maine and New Hampshire– passed marriage equality legislation. The Maine bill has been signed into law by Governor Baldacci; New Hampshire awaits the governor’s signature. In addition, this year Connecticut and Vermont joined Massachusetts in recognizing same-sex marriage. Thus, at the five-year anniversary of marriage equality, five New England states have at the very least expressed strong support for a vision of inclusiveness. In addition, Iowa– smack in the heartland– allows same-sex couples to marry. Read more.
It seems hard to believe that as of May 17, 2009, we’ve had marriage equality in Massachusetts for five years. Part of the reason for disbelief is that we had to fight off constitutional amendment efforts until June 14, 2007. And then we had to fight off, until July 2008, a racist 1913 law that kept same-sex couples from out of state from coming to Massachusetts to marry. Our legislators and our governor, Deval Patrick, deserve huge praise for protecting and expanding marriage equality.
So we have almost had a year of marriage equality that brings all of the rights of Massachusetts marriage law to all married Massachusetts residents. But we need to keep remembering that the 1,138 federal rights that accrue to married couples are still not ours. The work of securing equality for all is not done.
But yesterday was a day to feel grateful. MassEquality kicked off the celebrations heading up to May 17th with a press conference at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston.
Peter Hams, Susan Shepherd, and Marcia Hams cut the 5th Anniversary cake as Attorney General Martha Coakley and Lt. Governor Tim Murray and others looked on. Photo: Marilyn Humphries.
Shepherd and Hams applied for the first legal same-sex marriage license just after midnight on May 17, 2004 inCambridge City Hall. We tell their thrilling story in Courting Equality.
NECN Cable News captured much of the excitement of yesterday and the past five years. Check it out
Even those of us on the very “Big Island” of America can help the civil rights struggle in Hawai’i–from our computers.  Help the movement get more hits on the great videos that are aimed at legislators who are turning their backs on civil rights. Movement leaders are combining creative art with political struggle. Give their “views” a boost. Click on . . . “What’s Going On”
Hawai’i needs our help! Click away.
Email Sen. Brian Taniguchi sentaniguchi@capitol.hawaii.gov and tell him that you’re not interested in visiting a state that does not recognize the civil rights of LGBT people.
Tell Sen. President Colleen Hanabusa senhanabusa@capitol.hawaii.gov the same thing.
The marriage equality victory in Iowa was greeted with heartfelt cheers on our side and an attempt to rain on our parade with a 60 second homophobic commercial, “The Gathering Storm,” from a Mormon front group, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). They want all Americans to be afraid—like them. NOM claims to have spent $1.5 million to produce and air what looks like a bad high school production. I’m afraid they got taken. Read and see more.
While to some the future of HB 444 for Civil Unions looks bleak, don’t tell that to the thousands of equality activists on the ground in Hawai’i. Technically there still is time to pull HB 444 from the Senate Judiciary Committee (that is deadlocked at 3-3)Â and get the bill on the Senate floor. It’s already passed the House 33-17!
Once HB 444 is on the Senate floor, 18 of the 25 senators have pledged to vote for it. BUT getting it on the floor has been difficult. It takes 9 votes to get it out of a deadlocked committee. In a brave move on March 25th, Sen. Gary Hooser tried to get the 9 votes. He got only 5 in addition to his own. The honor roll of bravery for equality: Sens. Les Ihara, Michelle Kidani, Rosalyn Baker, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Carol Fukunaga and Gary Hooser.
People of Hawai’i pledged to equality need to move the other 12 senators who claim to support equality to do something to help get the bill out of committee. Send this video to everyone you know in Hawai’i get them to call, email, buttonhole these senators asking them to show some courage and get HB 444 on the Senate floor and vote YES for equality.
Enough excuses. HB 444 is about civil rights-equality.
