Reflections on Arizona’s Vetoed Anti-Gay Legislation: Time to Seize the Moment
Arizona’s recently failed attempt to enact a law permitting restaurants, hotels, and other businesses to deny services to LGBT people, under the guise of religious liberty, rightly raised the ire of LGBT people and all those who oppose discrimination. The nationwide attention the bill received also has a silver lining.
It awakened Americans to the fact that LGBT people currently have no protections against discrimination in public accommodations under federal law, and that only 13 states prohibit such discrimination against LGBT people (and another 8 states outlaw such discrimination against lesbian and gay people). In other words, even without the failed legislation, businesses in 29 states, including Arizona, currently can discriminate against LGBT people with legal impunity (if no local ordinance exists) because these states have no statutes prohibiting such discrimination, and federal law contains no such prohibition.
Ironically, our opponents’ efforts to enact this draconian legislation have educated Americans to the fact that LGBT people need these legal protections nationwide. It’s time for those who oppose discrimination in all its invidious forms to demand federal legislation to prohibit such discrimination against LGBT people.
The vetoed Arizona legislation also reminds us once again that we are all in this struggle together. Former Congressman Norman Mineta, speaking to the Japanese American Citizens League about marriage discrimination against same-sex couples, said “a threat to anybody’s civil rights is a threat to the civil rights of all Americans.” Nowhere is this insight more evident than the Right Wing’s efforts, under the guise of religious protection, to undermine gains in equality that LGBT people, other minorities, and women have gained over the last six decades.
Later this month, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in cases where owners of public businesses claim that their religious views about contraception should take precedence over the medical choices that female employees and their doctors make about what is in the best interest of the women employees. A decision in favor of the owners could dramatically narrow women’s opportunities in the workplace, and limit their autonomy over medical decisions – all under the guise of religious freedom.
Similarly, interpreting the First Amendment to allow business owners to use religion to justify discrimination could open a gaping hole in many other statutes that prohibit discrimination again minorities and women in employment and public accommodations. After all, the trial court judge inLoving v. Virginia, the case in which the US Supreme Court ultimately overturned laws that banned interracial couples from marriage, ruled in favor such bans, proclaiming: “Almighty God created …(different) races …and placed them on separate continents…(this) fact…shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” Religion could once again be used in innumerable contexts to justify discrimination.
The backlash against the Arizona bill is already causing other state legislatures to rethink passing similar measures. It’s time to seize the moment and enact federal legislation to protect LGBT people from discrimination in public accommodations nationwide.
By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis
This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, March 6, 2014: http://sfbaytimes.com/reflections-on-arizonas-vetoed-anti-gay-legislation-time-to-seize-the-moment/
My Dad, an Intrepid Love Warrior
My 89-year-old dad passed away last week. He was a marvelous person – and an intrepid love warrior throughout his life. When I was born in 1958, my dad told my mother that he would like to be the one who got up in the middle of the night to feed me. My mother agreed, and my dad always described our time together during those feedings as sheer joy. “We were having so much fun that you didn’t want to go back to sleep, and neither did I.”
Many years later, Stuart and I married at San Francisco City Hall on February 12, 2004, and I called my parents in Kansas City that evening to let them know. Before I could get a word out, my dad interrupted, exclaiming: “We saw what was happening in San Francisco on the news. Were you there? Did you get married?!” Just a few weeks before, my dad had heard then-President George Bush’s anti-gay pronouncements in the 2004 State of Union address, and I remember him telling me that it felt as if the President of the United States had attacked our family before the nation.
I came out to my parents back in the early 1980s. In many ways, I had it very easy: my dad was then a professor of counseling psychology with semi-out colleagues; and my mother, also a university professor, had hung out in gay bars in Amsterdam with her gay friends in the 1950s. Despite my parents’ experience and intellectual understanding, my coming out process, however, presented challenges for them emotionally. Over time, they overcame them, embraced Stuart and other friends, and for years sent me clippings of every gay-related article they saw in the newspaper. They even apologized to me for failing to be sensitive to what I had experienced growing up and asked my forgiveness.
My mother had passed away by the time Stuart and I were able to wed legally in June 2008, but my dad proudly attended the celebration at City Hall. Last March, I visited my dad at his retirement community in Chicago before going to Washington, DC, for the Supreme Court hearings in the marriage equality cases. My dad had told all his friends and many staff all about it, and that I had co-authored an amicus brief before the Court. When I arrived, marriage equality and LGBT rights seemed to be the talk of the community. His friends now refer to Stuart as my husband.
The Lewis family came to America from Wales in the late 17th century to escape religious persecution as Quakers. When they arrived, they started a book in which they wrote down every member of the family born in the New World. My dad has the book today. In one of our last conversations, he asked me to get the book and to make sure that Stuart’s name was included in it. It is. My dad, born a kind, joyful, caring, and thoughtful spirit, was a love warrior to the end.
By MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis
This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, February 20, 2014: http://sfbaytimes.com/my-dad-an-intrepid-love-warrior/
The Relevance of the Winter of Love to the Entire LGBTIQ Community Today
This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the beginning of San Francisco’s “Winter of Love,” in which 4,037 same-sex couples married at San Francisco City Hall from February 12 to March 11, 2004. Those extraordinary days took the movement for marriage equality in California to a whole new level and inspired thousands of people to get involved. We now have the freedom to marry in our state. What the “Winter of Love” sparked remains highly significant as we continue the struggle for full LGBTIQ equality.
We began our involvement with the marriage equality movement on February 12, 2004, when we got married at City Hall. The experience was especially profound for us because it gave us the feeling of equality as members of the LGBTIQ community. From the beginning, we have always considered the movement for the freedom to marry to be linked inextricably to the struggle for LGBTIQ equality in all aspects of our lives.
The Winter of Love ultimately led to the California Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in In Re Marriage Cases, establishing marriage equality in California before Proposition 8 and recognizing that commonality of purpose. It established that any California law discriminating against lesbian and gay people in any aspect of their lives, not just marriage, was presumptively unconstitutional unless the government could provide the most compelling of reasons for the law. The decision protects lesbian and gay people in myriad aspects of their lives from education to employment to the criminal justice system.
As public attention and opponents’ efforts focused on marriage, the California Legislature also quietly enacted laws establishing many important rights and protections other than marriage for LGBTIQ people. The 2010 Proposition 8 trial presented testimony about the gross harm that so-called gay “conversion” therapy exacts on lesbian and gay people, and the California Legislature went on to ban such therapy for minors.
Soon we may be faced with another challenge at the ballot box in California regarding LGBTIQ rights. On January 1, 2014, the School Success and Opportunity Act (Assembly Bill 1266) took effect. It requires that all California public schools respect students’ gender identity and ensures that students can fully participate in all school activities and facilities that match their gender identity. Opponents (many of whom backed Prop. 8) collected petition signatures to attempt to repeal the law on the November 2014 statewide ballot.
The state is now conducting a full count of signatures, and the referendum may or may not qualify for the ballot. If it does, we must share our lives and tell our personal stories to show the world, as we did during the Winter of Love, that laws excluding LGBTIQ people harm real people – in this case, transgender students.
We must remember that discrimination in any aspect of our lives and against any members of the community affects us all. And we must invoke the spirit and enthusiasm that the Winter of Love evoked to defeat the referendum if it appears on the ballot, or prevail in whatever challenge lies ahead for our community.
By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis
This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, February 6, 2014: http://sfbaytimes.com/the-relevance-of-the-winter-of-love-to-the-entire-lgbtiq-community-today/
Keep on Keepin' On for Marriage Equality
One year ago I described the 2012 election as the turning point in the struggle for marriage equality, as three states won or protected the freedom to marry at the ballot box and another fought back a constitutional ban. But if 2012 marked a watershed, 2013 was the deluge over that divide, with a record number of states recognizing equal marriage, and more than half of those doing so legislatively. In one year, the number of marriage equality states effectively doubled. Sixteen states, the District of Columbia, and several Native American tribal councils – representing over 38% of the population – now recognize the freedom to marry (with decisions in Utah and Oklahoma, representing an additional 2%, currently stayed pending appeal).
The transition from 2013 to 2014 also marks a decade of equality, as the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court equal marriage decision went into effect in May 2004. 2004 also saw the celebration and tragic voiding of four thousand marriages in San Francisco, in some ways teeing off the long painful fight for marriage equality in California that resulted in In re Marriage Cases, Prop 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and, finally, the restoration of the freedom to marry. As critical as 2004 was in the movement, though, it’s important to remember that the struggle for legal recognition of our relationships began more than three decades earlier.
There are potential drawbacks to both the seemingly rapid rate of success we’ve seen recently, and the long hard work needed to make such successes possible. A sense that the tide is unstoppable risks making us complacent, while the long hard work necessary risks burning us out, especially once our own state has won equality.
For many of us, for example, the sense of euphoria we felt in 2013 as marriage equality was restored to California largely erased the pain of the five years while the Prop 8 case made its way through the courts, or at least seemed to offer a chance to try to catch our breath.
Still, over half of us live in states with statutes or constitutional amendments explicitly denying marriage to same-sex couples. And those of us who may legally marry at home shouldn’t have to fear becoming legal strangers to our spouses as we cross state borders. The work goes on, as long as even one of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers still is denied the freedom to marry the person they love.
Though Marriage Equality USA has its roots and largest membership bases in states where marriage equality is now law, the organization is proud to be a strong and active player in the fight to win the freedom to marry for all Americans. Thanks to our NEAT (National Equality Action Team) coalition, MEUSA has played a key role in winning marriage equality in states like Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. This year we’ll be supporting efforts in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Oregon, among others. Please help us help them win the same freedom and happiness we now have.
By MEUSA Social Media Manager Thom Watson
In-Lawful Marriage
When Jeff and I married this past September, we expected that we would recognize a difference in our lives and in our relationship after tying the knot.
There are tangible differences, of course, as with our health insurance coverage and taxation. The differences most often have been subtler, but they clearly exist. Marriage matters.
Even in silly little ways we notice it. We delight in referring to each other as “husband,” and it feels more truly descriptive and honest to do so now. And, though we’d been living together a decade before our marriage, and had a registered domestic partnership for nearly half that time, we recently began only half-jokingly commemorating “our firsts,” though they were firsts only in a qualified sense: our first Thanksgiving “as a married couple,” our first Christmas “as husbands,” our first New Year “as legal spouses.”
What I don’t think we fully expected, though, was just how much our marriage meant to other people, and how it would change the way even our friends and families relate to and about us. Those changes run the gamut from trivial to significant. A great many of our friends, for example, have congratulated us on our first Christmas as a married couple.
More subtly, friends and family members who treated us with respect before we were married, who saw us as a committed couple even without a license, nevertheless seem to see and speak of us differently now. Our mothers provide perhaps the most poignant examples. Early in December, Jeff introduced me at a party to an old friend of his mother’s as his husband. Jeff’s mom jumped right in and said, “Yes, I now have two sons.” Our Christmas card from her reflected the same sentiment, as she had used a pen to change the card’s pre-printed “My Son” to read “My Sons.” Similarly, my mother addressed Jeff’s Christmas card this year to “My Son-in-Law.”
Friends and family who rarely, if ever, intruded into the particulars of our relationship now ask when or if we’re planning to have kids; yep, just like opposite-sex couples, that’s now the expectation for what follows marriage. My mother told my nephew’s new fiancées that they have Jeff as an example of how to survive marrying into my loud, overwhelming, overly protective family, and how to deal with one’s in-laws.
Marriages matter, not just for spouses, but for their families and indeed for the larger society in which they live and move. When we marry, our families, friends, and neighbors more clearly understand – and, what’s most troubling to our opponents, increasingly respect and embrace – that families, communities, and societies benefit, and are strengthened, when marriage makes possible the time-honored and express relationship not just with your daughter and son-in-law, but with your son and son-in-law, too.
Mothers-in-law may be fodder for comedians, but understanding that Jeff’s mom is my honest-to-goodness mother-in-law – and that she believes it, too – is about as serious as it gets.
By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson
Marvin Burrows: Love Warrior
Last weekend, our community lost one of our most powerful advocates and a truly wonderful person: Marvin Burrows.
Marvin came out 62 years ago – in 1951 – at age 15. A couple years later he met Bill, whom he would marry at San Francisco City Hall on February 13, 2004, 51 years later. In his own words from testimony to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee: “I met the love of my life, William Duane Swenor, in 1953. He was 15 and I was 17. My father found out and told me to leave home if I continued to see Bill. After my dad kicked me out I had no place to go, and I was still in high school. I stayed with my grandmother until Bill could ask his mother if I could move in with them. She gave her permission, I moved in, and from that time on we lived as a committed couple.” After 51 years together, Marvin described his wedding to Bill as “the best time in our lives…”
But the courts declared Marvin and Bill’s marriage and the marriages of over 4,000 other same-sex couples who married in San Francisco in 2004 “null and void.” And as Marvin and Bill began to fight back with thousands of others, Bill died suddenly. Because their marriage had been declared to be illegal, Marvin was denied the legal rights and dignity that every American should have. The indignity began almost immediately after Bill passed away. “When Bill passed I called the cremation service that had taken care of my mother…However, they told me that I did not have the right to dispose of (Bill’s) body…(because they) considered us to be only ‘roommates,’ basically legal ‘strangers.’”
That was only the beginning. Soon thereafter, the Social Security Administration denied Marvin spousal survivor benefits and Bill’s labor union denied Marvin survivor pension benefits because the law would not recognize their marriage, even after 52 years together. Marvin was forced to move from the home that he and Bill had shared for over three decades. In Marvin’s words, “I lost my lifelong partner, my home, our animals, income, my health insurance, and even my bed and furniture all in one fell swoop.”
Marvin fought back in every way and with everyone he possibly could.
Over the years, Bill and Marvin had built strong personal relationships with many of Bill’s fellow local union members – all of whom identified as straight – and the union members had deep respect for Bill. They and many others stood up with Marvin, and after a 3-year struggle, the national union finally relented and awarded Bill’s pension to Marvin, saying it was “the right thing to do for a fellow member.” The victory was a public policy breakthrough for same-sex couples everywhere.
Marvin was a wonderful friend, and an inspiring activist with organizations including Marriage Equality USA, Lavender Seniors, GLOBE, Meals on Wheels, and California Senior Leaders at UC Berkeley, just to name a few. His legacy inspires us all to continue to stand up together and never give up.
By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis
This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, December 18, 2013: http://sfbaytimes.com/marvin-burrows-love-warrior/
Coming Out for Marriage Equality in Japan
As we commemorate the 35th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk, our recent trip to Japan to speak about marriage equality made clear how Harvey’s call to come out is just as important as ever.
Significantly fewer LGBT Japanese have come out than their American counterparts, and LGBT Japanese are a much less visible part of society and the media than in the U.S. The Japanese people we met gave us insight into how coming out in Japan is similar to, and different from, America.
One Japanese activist told us that he came out to his parents in high school after his first date with a boy, because he did not want to keep a secret within himself and wanted his parents to know him as he really was. His parents were very accepting. But another activist described how 20 years ago, his father and brother beat him when he came out and threw him out of the house. He found his way to the office of a Tokyo LGBT activist organization that let him sleep on their floor until he could get on his feet. He has now worked for that organization for over 10 years and is a leading advocate for people with HIV/AIDS in Japan.
We met a bisexual student who wants to design LGBT manga cartoons to support the movement, but was afraid to come out to her father. We encouraged her to come out if it was safe, so that she could lead a life that was true to who she was and contribute her creativity and talent to help others.
Coming out appears to be particularly difficult for many Japanese LGBT people because of the importance of social conformity in Japan. Many college students told us that they had known perhaps only one openly LGBT person in their entire lives. We were the first openly LGBT people some had ever met. Activists told us that the pressure for conformity can lead to greater internalized homophobia, and that coming out can lead to significant social isolation and loneliness.
However, our speaking about Harvey Milk’s call to come out – both for one’s personal well being and for the benefit of the movement – seemed to resonate everywhere we went. Activists believed that more Japanese LGBT people coming out was critical to advancing legal, social, and political change, including marriage equality.
After hearing our marriage and coming-out stories, one student decided it was time for him to come out, too — but not as LGBT (he was straight) but as a Japanese person of Korean ethnicity, a group that faces significant discrimination. When he came out as Korean-Japanese and told his personal story of exclusion and discrimination, he received enormous support from his classmates. In so doing, we hope he made his own life better and, at the same time, took an important step to help the movement for human dignity and equality for all – an act with which we believe Harvey would have been very pleased.
By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis
This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, November 28, 2013: http://sfbaytimes.com/coming-out-for-marriage-equality-in-japan/
Going Global
Just-ly Married



