One might think that the elation resulting from the June 26^th Supreme Court decisions in the DOMA and Prop 8 cases would ameliorate any feelings of impatience in the LGBT community. But, human nature being what it is, many of us moved very quickly from celebration to itching for the rights we will have access to –particularly those of us who are directly affected. Most of us are intelligent and fairly practical people who acknowledge that it takes time for creaky bureaucracies to move and change, but mixed with our anticipation there may also be an element of fear, that if things don’t move quickly it might all somehow never materialize. This fear is based in some reality for people who have lived through experiences such as marrying at San Francisco’s City Hall during the 2004 Winter of Love only to have their marriages legally invalidated 6 months later. Overall, the post-DOMA process seems to be moving fairly quickly and smoothly for same-gender binational couples, and the news that green cards were being issued in June was one of the first concrete examples that things really are changing. This past week’s news from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service is encouraging and a relief. However, when it comes to extending equal rights to the families of LGBT military personnel and veterans we begin running into time frames and roadblocks that are enormously frustrating. In mid-July MEUSA received the following letter from two of our members (published as written with the author’s permission):

Report from the trenches [caption id="attachment_409" align="alignleft" width="203"] Barb and Pat dressed for Colonel Patsy R. Thompson's military retirement in 1993[/caption] June 26, 2013---ahhh, what a day in equality history and in our personal lives!  We now, after almost 29 years, have the right to all of the 1138 rights of a federally recognized and legally married couple in the state of California!!  Equality rocks!! Now on to the nitty-gritty of this significant event.  We spent the first few days in “pinch me” mode.  Hardly believing that Col. Pat Thompson’s 37 plus years of military service to this country would actually afford us the same benefits that millions of other veterans receive.  We took every legal step along the way to ensure this, if ever it were to materialize:  signing up as Domestic Partners in CA, spending thousands of dollars for trust agreements, marrying in San Francisco in 2004, marrying in Placer County, CA in 2008 and marching, demonstrating and constantly and consistently signing petitions to win our rights. The reality of the work it would take to achieve our goals was now staring us in the face.  But what a joyous task it would be!  We contact the agencies, let them know our status, fill out the forms and voila--benefits!  The beautiful groundwork of the various organizations that have been fighting this battle was already in place.  We had links to all types of bureaus and official offices that we could possibly need from Courage Campaign, Lambda Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Human Rights Campaign, ACLU, Outserve-SLDN, Marriage Equality and more.  So on to the process...! [caption id="attachment_408" align="alignnone" width="560"] Barb and Pat in front of the Federal building, 2013[/caption] July 15, 2013 would be the day I got my military spouse ID card and all its attendant privileges!  An appointment was made, the documents we needed were in hand (marriage certificate, passport, driver’s license, birth certificate), we drove 40 minutes to the Military Offices in Sacramento, signed in through security and met with our ID card clerk.  Within 1 minute were told that the military will not be able to issue these cards until September 1, 2013!!!  This was not just a minor inconvenience and waste of time and gas, it was another slap in the face.  The LAW had changed and we expected to be treated just like any other married couple.  What had happened???  It felt like we were sliding back down into a deep well we had just struggled to climb out of.  What needed to be done at the Pentagon to cause a 6 week or longer delay in our first step up the ladder of equality???  Oh, perhaps they needed to rewrite the forms to say spouse instead of husband or wife.  Maybe it was necessary to print our forms in rainbow colors to distinguish “us” from “them”?  Did they want to give us a belated wedding gift with our benefits package and needed time to find our wedding registry?  What still made us different from any other married couple??? Are we alone in this? We ask for your response to this situation. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Ever hopeful, Pat Thompson and Barbara Brass Roseville, CA

Brass’ letter illustrates the impatience people are feeling – and her punctuation certainly emphasizes the emotions she felt when writing it! MEUSA’s Military/Veteran’s Community Liaison Ty Redhouse immediately responded and provided information from the Dept. of Defense Press Release that explained there would be a 6 -12 week process to begin issuing new identification cards. We haven’t checked in with Brass and Thompson to see if they have a new appointment to get Brass her spousal ID card. However, we’ve been following the news closely to watch as events unfold for other American military personnel and veterans and their spouses. On August 27, 2013 the Washington Blade published an article, Veterans benefits for gay married couples still denied, after they obtained a letter, dated August 14, from Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki to U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). In February 2013 Senator Sheehan introduced legislation to obtain benefits for same-sex married couples in the military. In the letter Shinseki stated that [Editor: as of the time the letter was written] LGBT military vets were not eligible for the benefits of marriage due to Title 38, a section of the United States Code that governs Veterans Benefits, which defines spouse in opposite-sex terms independent of DOMA. The Blade article was accompanied by a photo of MEUSA member Tracey Cooper-Harris and her legal wife Maggie Cooper-Harris. Cooper-Harris is a decorated, disabled veteran who sued the federal government for benefits she and her wife were denied under Title 38. On July 20, 2011 Cooper-Harris submitted written testimony for a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the legislative repeal of DOMA and the Respect for Marriage Act. On February 1, 2012 the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Cooper-Harris and her wife charging that the Department of Veterans Affairs discriminated against them by denying them benefits and further charging that DOMA was unconstitutional. On August 30, 2013 we read the thrilling news that the Cooper-Harris lawsuit was settled by “a historic ruling that has declared unconstitutional sections of a statute that prevented the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from granting benefits” to Cooper-Harris and her wife. In addition to the Supreme Court DOMA decision and the Cooper-Harris victory, according to a New Republic article published on September 1, 2013, Senator Sheehan is proceeding with her bill, the Charlie Morgan Act, which would grant benefits to same-sex married couples in the military. Sheehan’s bill is named for New Hampshire National Guard Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, whose wife and daughter were denied survivor and other benefits after her death. Between the delay in accessing benefits and the quickly changing, and often confusing, news is there any wonder that people are feeling anxious and impatient? We think not. None of us can bear to think of the generations of LGBT couples who have gone before us and died never receiving the societal recognition, legal protections and financial benefits they deserved. We’d collectively jump off the nearest bridge. People are tired of waiting and they want the results of the Supreme Court decision in place NOW. The reality is that for many of us these benefits are not primarily about societal status or recognition. They are often about daily economics and security for us and our dependents. Edie Windsor, bless her, may be well-off, but most of us are not. Military personnel and their families, as well as retired vets, certainly fall into the category of people who need every resource and every bit of financial compensation that they are due. Although these reports do not focus on military families, we suggest checking out the Williams Institute research regarding poverty in our community and the All Children Matter report on how children are affected by social, legal and financial inequality. Perhaps the very best thing we can do with this time, this waiting, is to strive to gain something positive from it, or to do something positive with it.

• If we are not already a member of these communities, we can take a good, hard look at our attitudes regarding other people in our country who have suffered legal oppression, financial inequality, loss of lives and/or property, who waited generations for acknowledgment and reparations, or who have never yet received them and probably never will: Native-Americans/Indians, the descendants of African-American slaves, the Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated in American concentration camps during WWII
• If we know a military/veteran same-gender couple we can reach out to offer support and acknowledge what they are going through
• We can work for the rights of transgender people in the military
• We can commit ourselves to continuing to work until every same-gender couple in every state in our country has access to civil marriage equality and to the protections and benefits their families need

And, we can always take a long, deep breath and count to 10.

By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson As though wedding planning weren’t stressful enough on its own, California couples making or reviving plans to marry this summer and beyond have been faced with the additional anxiety of wondering whether the issuance of marriage licenses might be halted and weddings once again put indefinitely on hold. After nearly five soul-crushing years of waiting on the part of gay and lesbian Californians, their families, friends, and allies, the determination by the U.S. Supreme Court that the Prop 8 proponents did not have standing to repeal the district court’s ruling overturning Prop 8 on federal constitutional grounds rightly was celebrated as a victory for marriage equality in California. It had been a long, painful, ugly fight. But the highest court in the land had weighed in. Game over, man. Not so fast, responded those who had led the fight against civil equality. Despite defeat after defeat in court after court, including the U.S. Supreme Court and, increasingly, the court of public opinion, as recently as last week the Prop 8 proponents still continued their Hail Mary attempts to stifle joy and quash dreams even as their legal options to strip loving, committed same-sex couples of their freedom to marry all but evaporated. After being rebuffed by the highest court in the land, the anti-equality forces, joined briefly by San Diego County Clerk Ernest J. Dronenburg, Jr., turned their sights back to the California Supreme Court. The Prop 8 proponents hoped they could convince the state’s highest court to set itself in opposition to a higher court’s ruling on a federal constitutional issue. The Prop 8 proponents were set to argue that the district court’s decision applied only to the two plaintiff couples – Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo – or, at most, only to couples living in Alameda or Los Angeles Counties. Yes, even as the Prop 8 proponents recognized that they could no longer legally prevent all California same-sex couples from exercising their constitutional freedom to marry, and even as weddings joyously already were occurring all over California, they still were willing to try to stop any that they could. But with the California Supreme Court’s refusal last month to halt marriages even temporarily, and then the unanimous decision of an en banc panel just last week to refuse to hear the Prop 8 proponents’ petition, the legal battle truly seems to be over. California same-sex couples can stop worrying about whether their marriage licenses will be revoked, and start worrying about the important stuff: Summer-weight linen or black tie? Chicken, beef, or fish? Will we ever figure out the #@$! seating arrangements? Would any jury convict us if we strangle anyone who shows up at the reception dinner after not having RSVPed? It’s not just an abstract notion for me. Jeff and I have had our plans to marry put on hold time and again due to Prop 8. In 2008, we had begun planning for a fall 2009 wedding. We hadn’t married during the brief window of opportunity that summer: We didn’t want to rush the planning, we weren’t sure if those marriages would be invalidated should Prop 8 pass, and, perhaps naively, we just didn’t expect Prop 8 to become law. In 2009, instead of a legal marriage, we held a commitment ceremony, partly as a way to speak out against Prop 8, to proclaim that those who opposed our love had no power to diminish it. In lieu of a registry, we suggested to guests who inquired about gifts that they consider making a donation to a marriage equality organization in our name. The following year we were one of the first couples standing on line at the San Francisco clerk’s office on August 12, 2010, waiting to hear that Judge Walker’s stay on his decision would be lifted and to get a marriage license immediately afterwards. Our hopes were buoyed when we heard that the stay would be lifted… and then dashed a few moments later when we learned that his decision would not take effect until the Ninth Circuit could review it, and marriages would not resume before the following week. On August 16, the Ninth Circuit weighed in and extended the stay indefinitely, again precluding our legal marriage. On June 28 of this year, after the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the case for lack of standing to appeal, and the Ninth Circuit’s unexpectedly quick decision to lift its stay, we were back at City Hall. This time – after first joining the crowd on the Mayor’s Balcony to see Kris and Sandy be married by Attorney General Kamala Harris – we finally walked out of the clerk’s office with our own license in hand. Some friends and fellow marriage equality advocates urged us to consider marrying immediately, and voiced concerns over the following weeks that the Prop 8 proponents might succeed in securing another stay on licenses being issued and marriages being recorded as they considered whether to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear the case. We held steady, wanting to wait to hold our wedding when our family and friends could be witness to it, symbolically and sentimentally on the anniversary of our 2009 commitment ceremony, and when we could be sure that our marriage wouldn’t subsequently be challenged or overturned. And that day now is rapidly approaching, even as we celebrate ten years together this year. We’ll be legally married at City Hall on September 26, and two days later will host our reception – a celebration not just for the two of us, but in a sense to honor all who are fighting for civil marriage equality in California and across the country. I’m no longer anxious or stressed about the sky falling on our legal marital status; instead, I just worry whether the San Francisco fog will lift for our big day.

August brings with it more wedding bells, as equal marriage rights take effect in Minnesota and Rhode Island, and more and more couples marry in California. It’s a great feeling to celebrate friends’ weddings and to have the freedom to marry extended to a growing number of states on both coasts, as well as in America’s heartland. With the end of Section 3 of DOMA, legally married same-sex couples are beginning to get notices from their employers about how that Supreme Court decision impacts their daily lives, as HR departments scramble to revise their practices to ensure equality in benefits. We remain hopeful that August may bring marriage equality to yet another state – Illinois – while progress continues in legislatures and courtrooms in states as diverse as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii, and more. At the same time, we are increasingly aware of the need to continue the ongoing work for full equality in all aspects of our lives, both for our own communities and beyond. Recently we attended a rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall – a familiar venue for marriage equality rallies for over a decade – but this time it was a vigil for justice for Trayvon Martin. As Rev. Amos Brown spoke, he movingly wove together civil rights and LGBT rights into one movement for human rights and dignity, and we recalled how his booming voice echoed off the walls of every building in the Civic Center five years earlier when he addressed tens of thousands of us assembled for the largest protest following the passage of Proposition 8. And now we have a new protest venue – the Russian Consulate – the site of a community rally in the wake of increasing homophobia taking hold in the world’s largest nation. While we celebrate wins for marriage equality on both sides of the English Channel, with both England and France embracing the freedom to marry, events in Russia and elsewhere are a sobering reminder that progress can be painfully slow – and gains can be reversed at any time by homophobic demagogues. Truly it seems like this is no time to rest. Yet we would be foolish if we didn’t make sure to celebrate our wins, as that fortifies us for the work that lies before us. We look forward to seeing you at both the next wedding reception, and at the next rally – for both are important and necessary reminders of how far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to go. By MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis and MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, August 8, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17867

As a sensitive and lonely gay kid in rural Virginia, science fiction and fantasy were my gateway to a world of endless possibilities and brighter futures. My favorite childhood friends and places included Corwin, Amber and the Courts of Chaos; Milo, Tock and the lands beyond the phantom tollbooth; Bilbo, Frodo and the realms of Middle Earth; among myriad others. To the woods behind my house, with handmade communicator and tricorder, I boldly went to seek out new life forms; in the wardrobe downstairs I desperately sought Narnia; on the carport I bravely battled garbage-can Daleks. I escaped the pain of feeling intensely different from family and peers, and of being an outsider in the world in which I lived, by retreating into these genres and the worlds they opened up. My passion for and exploration of science fiction and fantasy have shaped me considerably throughout my life. That’s the context, then, in which to place Ender’s Game, a celebrated and award-winning science-fiction novel I first read nearly 30 years ago. The story of Ender Wiggins, the misunderstood and bullied kid and potential savior of all mankind, his tragic destiny and his quest for redemption, resonated quite strongly with me, as it has for many. This fall, a movie based on the novel, starring Harrison Ford, is being released to great fanfare. I should be giddy with excitement, drooling with anticipation. I won’t go see Ender's Game. The author of Ender's Game, who also gets film credits as writer and producer, is Orson Scott Card. Why is that significant? In addition to his many works of fiction, for over two decades Card has published a series of uninformed, demeaning and even hostile articles about LGBT people, our civil rights and marriage equality. Card has described LGBT people as suffering from “tragic genetic mixups” and “sex-role dysfunctions.” He has written, “The dark secret of homosexual society… is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.” Card has argued, "Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced… but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society." To Card, civil marriage equality is a conspiracy by “government or society… to encourage reproductive and/or marital dysfunction in their children.” “However emotionally bonded a pair of homosexual lovers may feel themselves to be, what they are doing is not marriage. Nor does society benefit in any way from treating it as if it were,” Card wrote, adding, “But homosexual ‘marriage’ is an act of intolerance... So if my [gay] friends insist on calling what they do ‘marriage,’… they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our… real marriage. They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won't be married. They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes.” Particularly disturbingly, Card has invoked marriage equality as a potential justification for insurrection, writing, “[W]hen government is the enemy of marriage [i.e., allows same-sex couples to marry], then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary…. Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support [man-woman] marriage...” More condemnatory then Card’s ugly and inflammatory words, though, is that for the past four years he has actively served on the board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), whose stated purpose is to work to deny civil marriage equality. A portion of any money that goes into Card's pockets, then, may flow back to NOM, to be used to try to deny equality and dignity to loving same-sex couples. Moreover, the film’s success may determine the degree to which Card’s own celebrity is elevated and along with it a broader platform for the role he plays in funding and advancing NOM’s anti-LGBT and anti-equality agenda. I won’t go see Ender’s Game. I'm not petitioning the government to censor Card. There are no First Amendment implications to my actions, and there isn't even a free speech issue more generally. I'm not suggesting Card can't hold his negative opinions about gay people, speak out against my equality, wax nostalgic for a time when the government could jail people for being gay, or make movies. I'm not even specifically asking anyone else not to go see the film. Boycotts are controversial, and the choice to participate or not is a very personal one. Some believe that one can and perhaps even should make a clear distinction between an artist's less savory personal beliefs and causes, and the art he or she creates, and that supporting the latter doesn't mean endorsing the former. It’s likely, in fact, that I listen to music, read books, and see movies made by people who hold beliefs I might find equally repellent to Card’s. Let's be clear, though. Card isn't just someone who holds strong negative opinions about LGBT people. Card is a public figure, with a public platform he has used to advocate for anti-gay actions and government policy, and for LGBT people to be punished and shamed. And for the past four years, Card has served on the board of an organization whose very mission and purpose it is to deny civil marriage equality to same-sex couples, and has devoted time and money to try to write that organization’s tenets into state and federal laws and constitutions. Clearly, Card has the right to hold these beliefs, to make them public, and to donate as much money and time to NOM as he wishes. Correspondingly, though, I also have the right to criticize his beliefs, actions and causes, to hold him accountable for them, and to refuse to be complicit in them. I have the right to educate others about them. And I have the right to spend my money as I see fit, to support – or to withhold support from – any particular person, project or work of art. I don’t expect everyone to come to the same conclusion about the Ender’s Game boycott, but I hope we can agree that open and honest discussion about such actions is important nonetheless. Ironically and tragically, a man so intimately connected to a genre most often identified with exploring possibilities for better ways to live together and to grow as a species in the future, a genre that encourages respect for the alien, for those different from us, has elected to devote his time and resources to diminishing and limiting the humanity and rights of others in the present. I won’t go see Ender’s Game. Instead, I’ll stay in and watch some Star Trek or Doctor Who. And I’ll donate the money I’d have spent for a movie night to an LGBT advocacy organization. By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, July 25, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17809

Best San Francisco Pride ever? There’s certainly a good case to be made that the answer enthusiastically is “Yes!” At a minimum, I think I can state without exaggeration that Pride in 2013, due to the momentous decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit that week, along with a prompt, powerful and fully supportive response to those decisions on the part of city and state officials, marked a unique and historic moment for our city, especially in regards to marriage equality. [caption id="attachment_171" align="alignleft" width="225"] Thom Watson and Jeff Tabaco at San Francisco City Hall with their marriage license. Photo by Julie Bernstein.[/caption] For same-sex couples who married in California in 2008 before Prop 8 was enacted, for those legally married in other marriage equality states in the U.S., and for those marrying thereafter, Pride week marked the moment these marriages were no longer subject to a “not-recognized-by-the-federal-government” caveat, no longer just the “skim milk” marriages highlighted by Justice Ginsburg during oral arguments in Edie Windsor’s case challenging the constitutionality of DOMA. For the estimated tens of thousands of same-sex couples where one spouse or partner is a foreign national, Pride week spelled an end to the cruel and heartbreaking choice between love and country previously forced upon them by the government. For LGBT Californians, Pride week meant finally fully enjoying the same freedom and opportunity regarding marriage – whether to marry, whom to marry, and when to marry – already available to and often taken for granted by our siblings, friends, and colleagues. For San Franciscans and visitors in person at City Hall and the Civic Center marriage pavilion and for millions across the globe via television and the Internet watching so many happy, loving committed couples getting married – in the only city in the state that granted licenses to and conducted marriages for same-sex couples throughout the weekend – Pride week opened a window onto a brighter tomorrow where love wins, equality triumphs, and freedom more truly rings. And for LGBT people all across America, Pride week saw one more brick pried loose from the wall of inequality and indignity, and brought us one week closer to that wall tumbling completely into dust. It offered a ray of hope that all state marriage bans might soon be a thing of the past, albeit tempered with disappointment that the Court’s procedural punt in the Prop 8 case forestalled a sweeping decision that could have brought marriage equality to all Americans now rather than later. It demonstrated real progress for LGBT equality, however unevenly distributed it might be for now. And to many LGBT Americans and their most intimate relationships and their families, though regrettably not all, it accorded greater “dignity,” to use a word frequently repeated by Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion overturning DOMA Section 3. Hope, Progress, Dignity. It even has the ring of a Pride theme. 2014 Pride committee, be my guest. To be sure, the end of Prop 8 and DOMA Section 3 doesn’t mean the fight for marriage equality is over. Far from it: There still are 37 states where we aren’t yet free to marry whom we love, and the legal status of our marriages as we cross state borders remains very much unresolved. And even though many more of us now enjoy the freedom to marry, far too many of us still live in cities and states where we legally may be fired just for putting a photo of our spouse on our desk, or for asking for the same spousal benefits that our colleagues already enjoy. So we all need to roll up our sleeves and keep doing the hard work to ensure that the right to marry the person one loves – along with the right to employment free from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression – doesn’t depend on one’s zip code. One easy way to become involved in winning marriage equality across the U.S. is to sign up for Marriage Equality USA’s National Equality Action Team (NEAT) initiative. On a personal note, for my fiancé Jeff and me, Pride week will merit at least two spots among our personal “where were you when…” moments. I will never forget what we were doing or where we were – tearfully embracing and joyfully cheering in the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall – early Wednesday morning when Prop 8 and DOMA Section 3 lost at the Supreme Court, and again just two days later when love won and wedding bells began to ring once more for same-sex couples in California. For the two of us, that last week in June will occupy a singularly important and revered place in our hearts and our shared history. On Friday, June 28, Jeff and I were fortunate to be at City Hall to watch Prop 8 plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier proclaim their marriage vows to each other, and to be pronounced “spouses for life.” After witnessing that emotional and historic moment from mere feet away, we made our own way downstairs to the clerk’s office. In August, 2010, marriage license application in hand, we’d been near the front of the line at that same office full of hope that Judge Walker would rule Prop 8 unconstitutional, only to leave empty-handed, crying tears of frustration and disappointment, when that hoped-for ruling was stayed. This time, though, after ten years together and nearly five years after Prop 8 was enacted, we walked out of the clerk’s office back into the Rotunda, beaming and crying tears of joy, surrounded by friends and well-wishing strangers, with our marriage license in hand. Moments later, about 100 members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus filled the space with love and song, serenading Kris and Sandy and the many other couples marrying that afternoon with an excerpt of “San Francisco” from the new oratorio, I Am Harvey Milk. As I listened, once again full of hope, with my arm around Jeff’s shoulders and his around my waist, I was reminded of Harvey Milk’s words, “I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living… Gotta give ’em hope.” About that favorite word of his, Harvey also said, “Hope will never be silent.” In September, Jeff and I will be back at City Hall once more. And we’ll be the couple affirming loudly, hopeful for the future, with dignity, and with pride, “I do.” By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, July 11, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17775

The atmosphere inside San Francisco City Hall was electric as we received the historic decisions from the Supreme Court together with our friends, loved ones, and community. The shouts and cheers of joy as the rulings were announced rang out throughout the rotunda, as we learned of the landmark decisions. The end of Proposition 8 and DOMA marks a great turning point in our movement, propelling us forward until we reach full equality in all aspects of our lives nationwide. While equality remains an unfinished business, the momentum is now truly unstoppable. As our friends start making their wedding plans, we are reminded that these cases are about our very lives and the essence of who we are. Love wins. By MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis and MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, June 27, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17727

As we prepare to join hundreds of thousands of other LGBTIQ people for the iconic annual march down Market Street to show our pride, humanity and dignity to the world, we find our thoughts turning to one of the most meaningful Pride Parades for us as a family. A few years ago, our parents, now in their late 80s, all of our brothers and sisters, and many cousins – four generations of our family – joined us to march down Market Street. I remember my mother was moved to tears when she saw the thousands and thousands of people in San Francisco standing up for who they are and their freedom to love. Every day that led up to the Supreme Court’s decisions this June, my mother called me to ask when the decision would be announced. She remained full of hope, but each night she told me that she would recite a Buddhist chant in favor of equality for all. Indeed my mother, who is Chinese American, was only able to marry my father, who is English and Irish American, because in 1948 the California Supreme Court became the first state supreme court in the nation to overturn a ban on interracial couples marrying. My mother still remembers the day when one of her friends in the Chinese Students Club at U.C. Berkeley had to leave the state to marry her white fiancée a few years before the Court’s decision. My mom’s friend literally had to run from the law to marry the person she loved, simply because they were of different races. In its historic 1948 decision, Perez v. Sharp, the California Supreme Court held that each citizen’s fundamental constitutional right to marry was really no right at all, unless it meant the freedom to “marry the person of one’s choice.” My parents married in the International House at Berkeley, the very same place they’d met. But as they moved to other states, they found that each state’s laws treated their marriage differently simply because of their races. While looking for a house in Missouri, they learned that Missouri law prohibited marriage between whites and “negroes” or “Mongolians,” the term then used for most Asian Americans. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t discuss these discriminatory laws over the dinner table. But it wasn’t until 1967 that the US Supreme Court overturned all such laws nationwide in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case. The court declared marriage is one of the “basic rights of man.” My mother, John and I flew to Washington, DC, together as a family for events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Loving decision. My mother spoke out at the Capitol for the rights of all loving couples to wed, including her own son and son-in-law. Mildred Loving, who brought the historic lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court, stated, “I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.” When John and I were able to legally marry in 2008, surrounded by our family and friends, it was a dream come true. As we exchanged vows and were pronounced spouses for life, we felt that for the first time in our lives that our government was treating us equally under the law, and treating our relationship with full dignity and respect. The day was so transformative that we have committed to do everything we can to secure the freedom to marry for all. This year, my mom will not be able to join us to march in the parade because she is recovering from surgery, but we will be marching together with other family members, friends, and countless  LGBTIQ people to stand together as a community – proud of who we are and whom we love. By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, June 27, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17731

Next week is our anniversary. That is, one of our anniversaries. I’ve joked that one of the rare upsides to the lack of marriage equality is that unlike our opposite-sex counterparts, for whom the wedding anniversary is the focus for commemorating the relationship, same-sex couples can celebrate a number of mini anniversaries. For example, Jeff and I mark, to varying degrees, the dates of registering our domestic partnership, of becoming engaged, and of our commitment ceremony, among other milestones. But next week’s anniversary is particularly special. Ten years ago, we met in person for the very first time. Our story is the modern trope of meeting online, but with a traditional, almost Victorian, twist: our mutual discovery and earliest exchanges took place not in a chat room, on a dating site, or via Grindr or Scruff, but through the written word. Back when we were accustomed to writing more than 140 characters at a time, Jeff and I were avid bloggers, and we first became acquainted through our blog posts. Reading led to commenting, commenting led to light flirting, and we eventually decided that having so much in common, and living in the same city, we should meet face-to-face. Neither of us called that first planned get-together a “date,” nor going into it did we consciously think of it as such. But looking back even just a few weeks later, it was quite clear that what beforehand had been presumed to be just a casual meeting of two online friends had transformed – over the course of dinner, a concert, and hours of talking over coffee afterwards –into something else entirely, the beginning of a shared life. Three months later we essentially were living together in Virginia; three years after that we drove cross-country to our new home near San Francisco where Jeff had grown up. For Jeff, California was a homecoming. For me, it was a mythical El Dorado, but with streets paved not of gold but of tolerance and acceptance. Our California dream was that we’d marry and grow old together here. Jeff and I left Virginia the very year its electorate passed a constitutional amendment banning any legal recognition for same-sex couples. But the lopsided result of that anti-gay initiative surprised no one, especially given Virginia’s frequent and ongoing flirtation with anti-gay policies and politicians, not to mention its infamous history as the state that took its bid to ban interracial couples from marrying all the way to the Supreme Court. California, though, was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be better. Perhaps that’s why Prop 8 felt like such a bitterly deep and intensely personal betrayal to so many of us. So if California was my El Dorado, Prop 8 may have been rather my Pearl Harbor, that moment when I realized I could no longer sit on the sidelines. I might not have found El Dorado, but I could at least start laying down a few gold paving stones myself. Though I’d been a steady if somewhat quiet advocate for LGBT equality previously, beginning in 2008 I embraced a much more outspoken, public and now nearly full-time advocacy. Yet I eagerly wait for the day I help put myself out of a job. I expect to see that day in my own lifetime, as political trends and polls clearly show it’s coming, sooner perhaps than any of us expected even just a few years ago. After the first same-sex couples began legally marrying in Massachusetts in 2004, it was four years before another state joined the exclusive club. It took another four years to bring the total to six, plus the District of Columbia, by mid-2012. Just since last fall, though, that number already has doubled. There will be occasional heartbreaks and setbacks along the way, of course, as we witnessed in North Carolina last year and in Illinois just this past month. But it’s telling that the most recent stumbling block in Illinois, as surprising and disappointing as it was at the time, felt less like a loss and more like only a delay. And it’s not just wishful thinking on our part. According to the most recent Pew Research polling, even nearly 60% of those who oppose marriage equality nevertheless agree that it is, in fact, inevitable. To be sure, inevitability doesn’t imply speed, and the recent rate of success isn’t sustainable purely as a practical matter. Of the remaining states without civil marriage equality, more than 30 have constitutional bans. Reversing such bans can be a difficult, often multi-year process, even with the political will and initiative to do so. Nevada, for example, has begun the process, but it will be late 2016 before the freedom to marry may be recognized there, even if all goes smoothly. Barring a Supreme Court decision finding all state marriage equality bans unconstitutional (mirroring 1967’s Loving v. Virginia decision overturning anti-miscegenation laws), then, such bans will remain the law, in some states, for a while yet. Such a sweeping decision for nationwide equality seems, to me, extremely unlikely from this Court, at least for now. Nevertheless, I’m honestly optimistic about the possibilities for both Prop 8 and DOMA to be struck down, even if only procedurally. Regardless, though, of how the Supreme Court ultimately rules this month in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases, I expect our community to respond publicly and in great numbers, either in celebration or in protest. Marriage Equality USA is a coordinating member of the United for Marriage coalition dedicated to organizing and publicizing Decision Day events across the country. Visitunitedformarriage.org for the national events registry, andwww.facebook.com/dayofdecisionsf for information about local actions, including a planned community gathering in the Castro beginning 5:30 p.m. the day the Court releases its opinions, which could happen anytime this month with no advance notice, though the most likely dates are June 17th, 20th, 24th, or 27th. When Rhode Island became the tenth state to recognize the freedom to marry just six weeks ago, I wrote about the psychological power of the number ten: “Ten states. ‘Ten’ has a significance that goes beyond just being the number that follows nine. Ten has weight. It’s double-digits, it’s two full hands, it’s a number we count by. There are powers of – and a power in – ten.” A period of ten consecutive years even has its own name, and we romanticize such decades as constituting a significant unit of shared history: “the gay nineties,” “the roaring twenties,” “80s music,” and even one’s own twenties or thirties. One decade after our first date, Jeff and I are about to celebrate a significant milestone of our own shared history. At the same time we’re awaiting a critical landmark decision in our community’s history. And the two are ineluctably intertwined. Although the anniversary of our first date is a meaningful one to commemorate, there’s another we’re even more eager to be able to celebrate: our really-truly-legally-married wedding date. We think this September would be a lovely time to say “I do.” And the only gift we want or need is for the Supreme Court to say, “You may.” By  MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, July 11, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17681

It was perhaps one of the last things we thought we’d hear in a gay bar in the heart of the Castro. But at a recent Friday evening happy hour at Hi Tops, we saw two attractive young men eagerly approaching each other, and when we overheard their greeting to each other it went something like this: “Did you get your biography in yet? Yes, we just did it today! That’s great – so did we!  We’re so excited! Which adoption agency are you using…?” Definitely a sign of the times -- on a Friday night in a gay bar in the Castro, among other things, gay couples were discussing their hopes and dreams for having kids and raising families. And we were even more surprised when we heard the two men remark that gay male couples tend to receive babies through adoption more quickly than straight couples. We started thinking about the Proposition 8 case before the U.S. Supreme Court. If it’s true that many birth mothers who put their kids up for adoption actually prefer gay men to raise their children, that would cut an even wider hole through the Prop. 8 proponents’ already flimsy argument to the Court that only straight people should be able to marry because they need an incentive to marry if a woman becomes “accidentally” pregnant. If anything, the opposite would hold true: Surely gay couples should be able to marry if single pregnant women are choosing them to adopt their children. It reminded us of a moment a few years ago in one of the marriage equality court hearings when a judge pointed out that social science research suggested that lesbian couples make the best parents. San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Terry Stewart had to explain to the court that our argument was not that lesbian couples were better parents than straight couples, but that no person should face discrimination based on sexual orientation in marriage or child rearing. Indeed, our core argument in the Prop. 8 case is that all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation or any other external factor, should have the freedom to marry the person they love. The conversation we unexpectedly overheard at Hi Tops is further testament to the fact that same-sex couples are raising children and should have the opportunity for the same recognition and protection for their families that everyone else has. During an oral argument in the Prop. 8 case, Justice Anthony Kennedy put it this way:  “[t]here are some 40,000 children in California … that live with same-sex parents, and … want their parents to have full recognition and full status.” He went on to speak about the “immediate injury” these children face when their parents are denied the freedom to marry and the importance of these children’s “voice” to the case.  We hope this reasoning prevails at the Supreme Court and that couples at Hi Tops and all across California and the nation soon have the freedom to marry. The critical importance of the Supreme Court case challenging the misnamed “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) was also very much on our minds last week. We watched as Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee members, who have expressed their support for marriage equality, gave in to Republican Senators who oppose equality and cut same-sex bi-national couples out of immigration reform legislation. In the face of relentless Republican opposition, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a sponsor of the legislation to overturn DOMA, “implored” her colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee not to support the amendment that protected bi-national same-sex couples. New York Senator Charles Schumer, another marriage equality supporter, stated that lesbian and gay bi-national couples face “rank discrimination,” but in the end voted to exclude them from the bill in the name of compromise. The issue of whether the federal courts should apply “heightened scrutiny” to laws that disadvantage lesbian and gay people is one of the key issues before the Supreme Court in the DOMA case, and the question of whether lesbian and gay people have sufficient political power to protect themselves in the legislative arena without the aid of the courts is one of the questions the Court is considering in making that determination. At the Supreme Court oral argument in the DOMA case, Chief Justice Roberts chided our side, suggesting that the Court need not consider sexual orientation a protected class under the Constitution, because “as far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse” marriage equality. To the contrary last week, United States Senators were falling on their swords not to protect bi-national same-sex couples from unspeakable harm to their families. The Senators’ abandoning the cause of same-sex bi-national couples highlights as clearly as ever that the Supreme Court must assume its role in our constitutional democracy to protect the rights and lives of minorities when the legislature refuses to do so -- and thus overturn DOMA. Finally, we were struck by the unexpected importance of the Supreme Court arguments to another recent major gay news story:  NBA player Jason Collins’ coming out. In his Sports Illustrated coming out essay, Collins reported, “The strain of hiding my sexuality became almost unbearable in March, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against same-sex marriage. Less than three miles from my apartment, nine jurists argued about my happiness and my future. Here was my chance to be heard, and I couldn’t say a thing.” We could feel the pain of isolation and powerlessness in Collin’s words because we had experienced such things in our own lives many years ago. We are very happy that Collins has found his own voice now and is using it to speak out for equality. As we enter Pride month, the impact of the Supreme Court hearings on Collins reminds us yet again of the importance of the literally millions of LGBTIQ people who have come out and spoken the truth of their lives to their friends and family and to our nation. Many thousands of our community appeared at rallies in Washington DC and across the nation when the Supreme Court hearings took place; many thousands will come out at similar events across the country the day the Court issues its decisions. Bi-national couples stood up boldly for themselves around the Judiciary Committee vote last week -- and have not given up.  Jason Collins’ coming out illuminates how interconnected our lives and stories are. As the day the Supreme Court announces its decisions approaches (likely during the second half of June), we see the importance of the cases in many aspects of the lives of those around us. And each and every one of our coming out stories makes the strongest case before the Court. By MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis and MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, May 30, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17651

Last Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of a marriage equality milestone. On May 9, 2012, President Obama told the nation, “[W]hen I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed … same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet … are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, … it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” President Obama’s statement of support for the freedom to marry, the first by a sitting U.S. president and the culmination of a years-long “evolution,” made history. Even more critically, it made a difference in shaping the conversation that is difficult to overstate. In May, 2012, just six states and the District of Columbia had recognized marriage equality for same-sex couples. Just one day before the president’s pro-equality statement, in fact, after a bitter ballot initiative campaign and by an overwhelming margin of 61 to 39 percent, North Carolina voters had amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and to prohibit same-sex couples not only from marrying but from entering into any “legal domestic union,” including civil unions and domestic partnership. Our opponents gloated. One more confirmation, they asserted, of their talking point that every time “the people” are allowed to vote on marriage equality, they reject it. Then the president made his public statement of support for the right of same-sex couples to marry. And the tide, which already had started to turn, began to swell. 2012 became the watershed year for our movement. Since that spring, for example, public opinion polls consistently have shown majority support for the freedom to marry. Last September, the Democratic Party made history at its convention when it became the first major American political party to include a “Freedom to Marry” plank in its platform, a plank unanimously approved by the platform committee. In November, the voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington affirmed that freedom at the ballot box, while Minnesota rejected a constitutional ban like the one North Carolina had ratified only a few months earlier. Overnight, the number of marriage equality states increased by 50 percent. The opposition lost its momentum along with its favorite talking point. “The people” no longer could be counted upon to reject the freedom to marry. To the contrary, “the people” had rejected those who would stand in the way of freedom, unequivocally and without exception, in a four-state sweep. In January, President Obama again made marriage equality history. In his inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol, the president proclaimed, “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.” Going even further, he invoked “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall,” clearly tying the contemporary movement for LGBT equality to the civil rights struggles for gender and racial equality. And the president’s evolution represented just the tip of the iceberg. Two months ago, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who previously had voted in support of the Defense of Marriage Act and against adoption rights for same-sex couples, became the first sitting Republican senator to announce that he had reversed his position on marriage equality and now supported the freedom to marry. Portman’s announcement soon was followed by a flood of senators endorsing this freedom. Over just a two-week period in late March and early April, twelve more senators announced their support, including another Republican, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk. When the dust settled, 54 Senators (52 Democrats and 2 Republicans) were on record as supporting marriage equality. Among the 55 Democratic senators, only three still remain opposed. Now it’s May, 2013, and the landscape is almost unrecognizable from just a year ago. This month is barely half over, in fact, and already the legislatures of three more states – Rhode Island, Delaware, and Minnesota – have passed marriage equality legislation. Moreover, all five of Rhode Island’s Republican state senators voted for the freedom to marry, the first time the legislative caucus of either of the two major political parties, in any state, unanimously had supported equal marriage rights. Combined with the three states that recognized the freedom to marry last November, the number of marriage equality states has doubled over the past year, from six to twelve, plus the District of Columbia. And Illinois still could swell these ranks by one more before the end of this month. Given where we stand now compared to one year ago, then, it’s all but impossible to predict how different things might look a year from now. What will the state of marriage equality be in May, 2014? Which other states might recognize the freedom to marry by then? Oregon, which is planning to take the issue to the voters in November? Ohio, where the state Democratic Party just announced plans to attempt to repeal the state’s constitutional ban and recognize marriage equality, perhaps this fall? New Jersey, which has until January to override the governor’s veto of a marriage bill already passed by the legislature? And next month also promises to alter the landscape, for better or for worse, as the Supreme Court issues its rulings in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases. We can only speculate on which of the myriad possible outcomes will prevail – or whether the Court even will rule on the cases’ merits at all – but they include possibilities that could bring the freedom to marry to California alone, to California and the eight other states that offer civil unions or domestic partnerships, or even to all fifty states, though the latter seems unlikely to most advocates and legal analysts. Even the most restrictive of these positive outcomes – recognizing the freedom to marry only in California – still would be quite significant. Though it would increase the tally of marriage equality states by only one more, because California is so populous the percentage of Americans living in marriage equality states would nearly double. Of course, the Supreme Court also could uphold Prop 8, ruling that notwithstanding the equal protection guarantees of the U.S. constitution, a majority may vote to restrict or even revoke a minority’s right to marry. But even this worst-case scenario no longer has the power to threaten or discourage me. It is clear, even to our opponents, that the recognition of the freedom to marry is a foregone conclusion, sooner or later. At its best, the Court could read the same tea leaves and affirm once and for all that the U.S. constitution protects the freedom to marry for all Americans, right now, and regardless of where they live, just as it did in 1967 for interracial couples. But even at its worst, while the Court could slow the pace of freedom a little, it can neither stop nor reverse it. That horse already has left the barn. And it’s pulling a white wedding carriage all the way down to City Hall. By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, May 16, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=17625