Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg officiated at the wedding of two of his staff members, Jonathan Mintz, left, and John Feinblatt. The couple's two young daughters, Georgia and Maeve, were there to celebrate. (Courtesy New York Times)
New York has joined the list of states that allow its citizens to marry -- versus the states which allow only some of its citizens to marry. Connecticut joined the good list a couple years ago, so Ransom and I were legally hitched on June 20, 2009. Before that we had a legal Civil Union ceremony (January 3, 2007) and a wedding with no legal status (October 5, 1996).
Bigots argue that recognizing gay unions will destroy marriage. Hmm, how do they then explain our willingness to tie the knot three times to protect and celebrate our love? And how do they explain the loving family in the picture above?
But that’s not my point today. Rather, I am somewhat light-headed thinking about the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime. In 1974 a group of students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was denied the right to simply sit in a classroom together and talk under the group name Gay Alliance of Students. They (we) had to sue the university in federal court to gain that right. It took that suit and its appeal before the issue was settled by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
On October 28, 1976, Judge Howard Thomas Markey, a Nixon appointee, stirringly wrote:
It is of no moment, in First Amendment jurisprudence, that ideas advocated by an association may to some or most of us be abhorrent, even sickening. The stifling of advocacy is even more abhorrent, even more sickening. It rings the death knell of a free society. Once used to stifle "the thought that we hate," in Holmes' phrase, it can stifle ideas we love. It signals a lack of faith in people, in its supposition that they are unable to choose in the marketplace of ideas.
Now, 35 years later, gay student groups exist throughout the land, though, in truth, some are passé and no longer needed. Full marriage equality is on the horizon across the country and one can imagine an end to homophobia, or at least government-sanctioned homophobia.
Is 35 years a long time? Some would say yes; I would have said yes if asked that question in 1974 as an impatient 26-year-old. From where I sit today, and as I contemplate the long and far-from-completed struggle of women and blacks for full equality, no, 35 years does not seem so long to achieve what we have achieved.
I am proud of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York legislators and all the hard-working volunteers who brought this to pass in New York. I am also, quite frankly, proud of myself and of the small part I played in the struggle. To quote a line from The Big Chill and address it to my fellow gay revolutionaries in the Gay Alliance of Students, especially Steve Pierce, my boyfriend at the time, who committed Judge Markey's words to memory: “I was at my best when I was with you people.”
Thank you, Steve, for all you did; thank you, Governor Cuomo; thank you New York. Now will California please come to its senses?
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