Trying to Forget the Crushing Defeats since 2009

Hey guys, I guest blogged this week on “Redefining Faith Together”, the official blog of the LGBTQ Ministry at BU’s Marsh Chapel. Check their site out by going here.

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Gay people, think for a moment about a long-term relationship. Now, think about all the wonderful things you can look forward to with that relationship:

• Paying more taxes than married straight couples
• Being unable to visit your partner in the hospital
• Not being able to adopt your partner’s kids.

But think of it this way: at least it isn’t illegal to be gay here!

That kind of mentality- that LGBTQ people in the United States aren’t breaking the law by being who they are but are left behind by the law when they decide to commit to marriage, is exactly the kind of thinking that warrants the phrase “One step forward, two steps back.” It’s a good bit of luck, then, that it was also the name of the last OUTlook lecture hosted by the LGBTQ Ministry, which featured the legal opinions of (happily married) BU LAW professor Dr. Robert Volk.

The talk couldn’t have come at a better (or worse) time. Just 48 hours before Dr. Volk took the podium at the School of Education auditorium, the voters of Maine had narrowly passed Question One, which nullified the Maine Legislature’s 2009 bill that allowed Maine to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Maine became the the second state in two years to grant the right to marry to same-sex couples, only to have that right rescinded by a ballot initiative. The event, originally called “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back”, was renamed the day before the event to reflect the mood: Iowa was now the only state in the win column for Equality this year.

The win stunned people who thought that 2009 could be “the year” for same-sex marriage, especially after wins in Iowa and New Hampshire as well as civil-union bills around the country. It shocked the LGBT community, the Maine residents who thought the northern state was beyond discrimination. It even stunned super-pollster and incredible predictor Nate Silver.

But the win for same-sex marriage foes in Maine’s biggest feat? It illustrated to the LGBTQ community something that we long feared: that, on multiple occasions, something we see as a right (enumerated by state legislatures or supreme courts) has been rescinded, locked away, or neutered by the will of a voter’s majority.

It’s also something that differed greatly from the earlier losses for same-sex marriage. In 2004, in response to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples could be married because it would be unconstitutional to deny them that right, states across the US (stocked with what Dr. Volk called ‘vibrating conservatives’) moved to change their constitutions, pass laws, anything to stop same-sex marriage entering their borders. But in all of these cases, voters were charged with preventing something that hadn’t happened- denying same-sex couples the right to marry in, say, Kentucky, wasn’t a big deal–gays were never really allowed to marry.

But with the big win for Proposition 8 in California, the new precedent was set: the California Supreme Court had ruled that denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, and the voters–en masse–registered their disagreement. Couples who were given the right to marry in California, among them Talk Show Television’s first gay couple (Oprah/Gayle conspiracy theorists, stick with me on this one) Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres, and then had that right removed.

It’s all very…sad.

Not only was it sad, Dr. Volk said, but probably not right, either. Volk devoted a bulk of his opinion to the Prop 8 decision’s ethics, coming to the conclusion that if marriage is a civil right (and LGBT people generally do hold it to be one), it is not the job of the majority to decide the civil rights of the minority. Citing cases like Brown vs. Board of Education in the Supreme Court and bills like the Civil Rights Act in the Congress, the majority of people (many of whom did not support either outcome) had no say in the rights of the minority.

But the precedent is still there, and the support will probably stay there for some time: popular support for same-sex marriage closely tracks age, and because of this it will take time for a true majority of equality-supportive Americans exists. As Professor Volk said, “some people just need to die off.” Want your grandparents and your husband/wife of the same gender? Survey results and simple math say that might be difficult.

But this all leaves us with one big question: is there hope? To answer that, take a minute and look at where you are right now.

As you sit and read this, thirty states have constitutions prohibiting same-sex marriage. The National Organization for marriage, headed by Maggie Gallagher and her conservative-christian-”flapper” haircut, is claiming victories for “traditional marriage” in California and Maine. Carrie Prejean, the beauty queen who told gossip-blogger Perez Hilton that she “only believed in opposite marriage”? Yeah, she threw a temper tantrum on national television this week, and she’s going to make lots of money off of it.

Before you reach for the Ben & Jerry’s and turn up the Sara Bareilles, though, think a little bit more. Five states in the union grant same-sex couples marriage licenses. 14 of them protect students from bullying based on perceived sexual orientation, and you can’t be fired from your job for being (or looking) gay in 20 states. Perez Hilton, the world’s most flambuoyant–and odious–homosexual, hasn’t been killed for being gay. Neither has Kurt from ‘Glee’.

It’s taken us 40 years to go from getting beaten up in bars to being out in the workplace, taking public office, and getting married in some (possibly un-american) states. As the Broadway musical Hairspray (you didn’t think this column wouldn’t talk about Broadway, did you?) would tell us, “We’ve come so far, but we’ve got so far to go.”