2009 was a year of highs and lows for supporters of same-sex marriage.
Marriage ups and downs
Just as Massachusetts was about to celebrate five years of marriage equality, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry.
In April, Connecticut lawmakers passed a marriage equality law with bipartisan support. On April 23, Jodi Rell, the state’s Republican governor signed it into law.
In Iowa, six same-sex couples sued for the right to marry in 2005. Three lower courts ruled in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December 2008. In April this year, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in favor of the right to marry. Same-sex couples began marrying in Iowa on April 27.
The ruling was not considered surprising in a state that was one of the first to eliminate the ban on interracial marriage, desegregate schools and recognize the rights of married women. Iowa was the first state outside the east or west coast to offer any statewide recognition of same-sex relationships.
When Vermont became the first state to create civil unions in 2000, it was an historic breakthrough. Just days after the Iowa ruling, the Vermont legislature upgraded civil unions to marriage. On Sept. 1, couples were able to apply for marriage licenses.
The New Hampshire legislature passed a civil union bill in 2007, which took effect in January, 2008. On June 3 this year, after negotiations with the governor on wording of the bill to exempt religious institutions, the upgrade was signed into law, and is set to go into effect on Jan. 1
When the governor of Rhode Island said he would veto any marriage equality law, progress on legislation in that state came to a halt. However, Rhode Island recognizes marriages performed elsewhere.
In New York, the state Assembly passed a marriage equality bill three times. At the beginning of December, when the bill moved to the Senate, it failed by a surprisingly wide margin. An executive order from Gov. David Paterson, however, remains in effect. That order, which has been upheld by three courts, recognizes same-sex marriages performed out of state.
The next week, the marriage debate moved to New Jersey. Working under a deadline of change in administration, a marriage bill was debated in a Senate committee. Jon Corzine, the current governor, said he would sign a marriage equality law. Chris Christie, who defeated Corzine in November and takes office on Jan. 15, said he would veto the bill. The bill was not passed along to the full Senate but sent to the Assembly after sponsors could not get enough support for passage.
The state has had civil unions since 2007. As part of that legislation, a commission was set up to study whether same-sex couples were receiving rights equal to opposite-sex couples. More than half of the first 1,000 couples getting civil unions in the state filed discrimination complaints.
In Washington, D.C., marriages performed elsewhere were recognized after an ordinance passed the city council by a 12-1 vote in May. Although Congress has 30 days in session to review and reject any laws passed in D.C., they did not and the law stood.
With that first success, openly gay Councilmember David Catania decided to bring full marriage equality before the council. That law passed on Dec. 15 with an 11-2 vote. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the law on Dec. 17 at Covenant Baptist Church in southwest Washington. The law will go into effect early next year as long as Congress does not prevent its enactment.
Maine turned out to be a repeat of California.
On May 6, the governor of Maine signed a marriage equality bill into law after it passed both houses of the legislature. A petition drive through the summer placed the issue on the ballot in November and the law was repealed by slim margin.
The same day that Maine’s marriage law was repealed, Washington state voters passed an everything-but-marriage law. That legislation gives same-sex couples all the rights of married heterosexual couples that are granted by a state, but calls the marriage a domestic partnership.
The Nevada legislature passed a domestic partnership law, which the governor vetoed. Although Nevada passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage earlier in the decade, a gay state senator obtained a legal ruling that a domestic registry was not the equivalent of marriage. Along with pressure from the casino industry, which feared a boycott by the LGBT community, the legislature overrode the veto with a two-thirds majority on May 31. Despite the constitutional marriage ban, Nevada partnerships have all the protections on a state level that marriage has.
During the 2009 legislative session in Wisconsin, a law passed giving same-sex couples some limited rights and protections through domestic partnerships.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 1, 2010.
I am so relieved to read a report which focuses on the very real gains that the gay and lesbian community has won over the course of the past decade. In fewer than 10 years, we have won the right to marry in five states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire). Over that same time period, another five states (California, Washington, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon) enacted comprehensive domestic partnership or civil union statutory frameworks that grant to those gay couples who choose to enter into these relationships all of the substantive legal rights, benefits, and protections of heterosexual marriage. And also over that same time period, another four states (Colorado, Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Maryland) enacted legislation granting gay couples in those states a limited subset of the rights, privileges, and benefits of heterosexual marriage. In short, at least 14 states have enacted statutes varying from full marriage to less inclusive domestic partnerships, recognizing and endorsing gay relationships at the state level.
Less than a month ago, Washington, DC enacted a statute legalizing gay marriage in the District.
Also forgotten is the fact that New York, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC all recognize gay marriages performed in those jurisdictions where such marriages may be performed with the force of law.
Ten years ago, not one state recognized gay relationships at the statewide level. A handful of cities and towns had passed watered-down domestic partnership statutes, but these were pale shadows of the above-referenced, statewide measures.
The Obama Administration has granted to gay spouses of federal employees working for several federal agencies the same rights that are extended to the spouses of federal heterosexual employees, much to the ire of so-called “Christian†and conservative groups, which view this as a violation of the obscene measure known as the “Defense of Marriage Act†(DOMA).
Maggie Gallagher and her acolytes (and others inspired by religious bigotry) are crowing about the recent, heartbreaking votes to eliminate gay marriage in both California and Maine – but these evil men and women would do well to contemplate the future. Study after study has shown that younger people are much, much more accepting of gay marriage than are older people, and this does not appear to be an attitude that shifts as younger people grow older. Where will all of those older people be a mere 30 years from today?
We should never forget something, however. Forces of evil do exist in the US, and have existed in this nation since it was founded more than 200 years ago. Those forces opposed the abolition of slavery, opposed the granting of full legal equality to non-white Americans, opposed the granting of equality (including the vote) to women, opposed the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, and opposed the right of interracial couples to marry. Truly evil men and women do exist, and these men and women will do everything in their power to reverse the gains made by gay Americans in recent years. As has been said on so many previous occasions, all that is required for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.
Of course, I am disappointed by our recent losses in New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. However, every civil rights struggle invariably suffers devastating setbacks. As black Americans grew increasingly politically powerful and as they started to turn out to vote, black churches were burned down all over the Deep South. Yet these men and women did not retire to lick their wounds – they continued to fight, and continued to press both for legal recognition and for societal recognition…
One of the greatest strengths of the movement for equality for gay Americans lies in the sheer determination of so many activists not to accept defeat, and not to give up in despair in the face of harsh setbacks. The history of our movement has shown that we succeed because we never, ever acknowledge defeat – to the contrary, we always go on the offensive – whether it be by filing lawsuits, by orchestrating petition drives, by approaching our local, state, and federal representatives, or by changing the culture of the nation itself.
I have maintained, repeatedly, that the key to our ultimately attaining full equality in American society lies in our no longer hiding our identities. Again, study after study has shown that those heterosexual men and women who claim to know one or more gay people at a personal level are much, much less likely to harbour bigoted and homophobic attitudes than are those heterosexuals who claim not to know any gay people at a personal level. Coming out of the closet does more to break down barriers and to transform ugly beliefs and stereotypes than do any number of US Supreme Court opinions, newspaper editorials, or laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination. Merely knowing that a good friend is gay does more to challenge the attitude of the person confronted with this realization than any academic or scientific treatise could ever do. I therefore consider it to be nothing less than the moral imperative of gay Americans to be open about their sexuality on the same terms as apply to heterosexual Americans. I am fully aware that this does not come without considerable risk of personal cost – less than five years ago, I was fired from a high-paying position as a software consultant for a small company after my manager learned (by performing an Internet search) that I am gay. I am also estranged from two members of my immediate family as the direct result of acknowledging to them that I am indeed gay. I do not recommend that a young person who lacks financial independence come out of the closet; but I consider it to be utterly shameful for a self-sufficient adult American to remain closeted, particularly in the face of insults and homophobic “jokes†told by that person’s colleagues and “friends†to that person’s face.
It is precisely because coming out of the closet is so powerful and does so much to transform attitudes and beliefs that those men and women of evil and spiritual violence are such staunch supporters of the military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†policy. This obscene policy (and its underlying legislation) denies gay Americans the right to serve in the Armed Forces of their country on the same terms as are extended to heterosexual Americans. Ostensibly, gay Americans may still serve – but only if they remain utterly silent about their sexual orientation, and only if they refrain from engaging in sexual activity, even whilst off base in private settings. If a gay servicemember informs his own mother that he is gay, he is deemed to have violated the policy. If a gay servicemember has sex with his boyfriend in his own home, he is deemed to have violated the policy. If a gay servicemember sends a love letter to her partner, that servicemember is deemed to have violated the policy. In short, only by living a life of constant hiding may that servicemember continue to serve in the Armed Forces (leading many to refer to this policy as the “Lie and Hide†policy). All of this supposedly preserves “unit cohesion†and morale, and the federal courts have refrained from striking down this policy (or even granting it more than passing review) by citing “deference to the military†as the controlling legal principle.
I don’t know if President Obama will succeed in eliminating the DADT policy (which is undergirded by federal law, which may only be changed by Congress). Time and time again, we have seen that politicians are willing to throw us under the bus without a moment’s hesitation in order to remain in power, or in order to further their policy agendas in other spheres. The adage “God helps those who help themselves†is one which the gay community would perhaps do well to remember…
PHILIP CHANDLER
I’ve learned so much about same sex marriage after read your article. Me and partner also wanted to get marry but since our states Washington State and Nevada do not recognize it so we’ve been waiting on it.
Vivian — Washington State now has the “everything but marriage” statute, which creates a status identical to marriage but does not call it a marriage. And Nevada permits for domestic partnerships which are also substantively identical to marriage. Have you investigated the procedures to register your relationship?
PHILIP
Philip, thanks so much. Yes I’ve called Iowa Courthouse requested for an application and it’s on its way. I might go to Vegas and get marry there. Do you have any suggestion? I would hate to go through all the steps then found out neither of our states don’t recognize it.
Vivian