Blog Posts

An Old Lesbian Reacts to the Supreme Court Decision on Same-Sex Marriage

Like others my age, I never expected my country to end my second-class-citizen status.  The swiftness of the movement from gay rights legislation to same-sex marriage in some states to the June 26, 2015, ruling for marriage in all states takes my breath away. Yes, the Supremes were expected to rule as they did. And the vile comments by Justice Antonin Scalia remind everyone that bigotry has not been vanquished. But what a time of celebration for people who, when I was young, were judged sick or sinful or both, and in my middle age were struggling against long odds for basic civil rights.

I well remember when the few cities with gay rights laws in 1977 had them rescinded after Anita Bryant, former Miss America and orange juice spokeswoman, launched the “Save Our Children” crusade [a campaign opposing the gay rights movement]. I moved to San Francisco that year to be part of women’s liberation and gay/lesbian liberation. As an émigré from the Midwest, I was well aware that the tolerance and even approval I experienced were extremely unusual. Gay rights seemed tenuous then, and my future, uncertain. Even in San Francisco, I knew gay men who were beaten up, and lesbians whose children were taken away by hostile, homophobic courts. Even in a place safer for us than the rest of America, danger still threatened.

I would have been incredulous then if a psychic had predicted that same-sex relationships would be acknowledged for the whole country, albeit by a narrow 5-4 vote. On June 26, children of same-sex couples were saved in a way Anita Bryant could not have imagined: saved from living in stigmatized families. The ruling comes, appropriately, during Gay Pride Week in many cities. When I marched in the Bangor Gay Pride march in 1995, I saw people with paper bags over their heads (eyeholes cut out) who could not dare to be identified. This year there will be no paper bags.