Coming into work today, I passed by City Hall and the queue of gay and lesbian couples lining up to fill out their application for a marriage license. It’s hard not to be struck by the momentous occasion. And it’s hard not to be impressed by the look of sheer glee on the faces (except for my friends Jeff and Michael who are pictured with their trademark nonplussed expression). And it’s not the look of glee that comes at anyone else’s expense. Their happiness makes the homophobic rants from some quarters seem every bit the hysteria that they are. Even the conservative leaning Herald opines today, “For many gay couples this day represents possibilities they could not have hoped for a decade ago - a piece of paper that says their marriage is as valid as that of the heterosexual couple down the block. For them this will be a day both solemn and joyful - as it is for any couple approaching marriage. ” Indeed, the couples and the celebrants have behaved in a manner becoming the dignity of the occasion. Correspondingly, most of the media coverage has been commendable, even more than one could have hoped.
Today, too, is the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. An auspicious day for extending the state’s recognition of gay people as gay people. We have always had most general rights - only they didn’t apply to our capacity to love and form relationships with those we care for. One doesn’t have to equate gay marriage with the Second Reconstruction (and I don’t) to see that the two court decisions do serve similar functions in inspiring a beleagered population, in transforming them with hope. And at the very least, the coincidence of date highlights Bush’s two-faced nature in lauding Brown in one voice and decrying “judicial activism” in the other.
The next big question I have is what comes next. The Globe points out that several states seem likely to consider whether to honor Massachusetts same-sex marriages. New York may entail a battle between Spitzer and Pataki. Connecticut has just come out against gay marriage in their own state, but still hasn’t weighed in on MA unions. Rhode Island is likely to consider the issue as well.
But even if no other state recognizes a single of the marriages performed this week onward, it’s still a huge victory. A victory for reason and right. Americans love to claim the mantle of freedom and liberty and equality and act as if the rest of the industrialized countries don’t have similarly robust democracies. In fact, gay Americans could not help but notice the irony that while something dynamic in American culture gave birth to the gay rights movement in the 1950s and gay liberation in 1969, Western Europe has always been ahead, way ahead, in recognizing our rights, from Wolfenden to the Netherlands finally legalizing marriage. When it comes to its gay citizens this country has at times responded with the worst instincts of a theocratic regime. The first years of the AIDS epidemic. Bowers v. Hardwick. Now, that dynamic is reversed. We are not simply joining Europe, we’re leading as well. At least today, at least in Massachusetts.
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