Earlier this month, Arthur posted Uniquely Nasty: The US Government’s War on Gays. I had not heard these stories.
Also, 42 years ago, and I had heard about this, possibly from the aforementioned Arthur, The Worst Mass Murder Of Gay People In US History.
Not to mention Franklin D. Roosevelt’s forgotten anti-gay sex crusade.
So, during Pride Month, it is a most pleasant comparison to celebrate the Supreme Court case OBERGEFELL v. HODGES, Argued April 28, 2015—Decided June 26, 2015. Here are President Obama’s comments, and Andrew Sullivan: It Is Accomplished.
As Jim Obergefell, the name on the case said in an ACLU fundraising letter:
The road to this incredible victory stretches back to 1970, to Jack Baker and Michael McConnell, who brought the first challenge to laws against same-sex marriage. It runs up to 2013, to Edie Windsor, who toppled the Defense of Marriage Act. And it extends through 2014, when Kyle Lawson, Joanne Harris, Paul Rummel, and many others fought for the freedom to marry in their home states. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to these heroic people.
On the CBS Evening News of June 26, the On the Road guy, Steve Hartman said: “It’s been nearly 50 years since CBS News first took on the subject of gay rights. It was in a documentary. You’ll recognize the host, Mike Wallace, but you won’t recognize your country…”
You can watch the controversial report, which aired March 7, 1967 – my 14th birthday, and I believe I watched it at the time – and read Wallace’s later regrets about it. (You can find the former video elsewhere, tied to very pointed anti-gay propaganda.)
Hartman continued:
So much has changed in the last 50 years. But one thing hasn’t. At the end of the 1967 documentary, the guy behind the plant [to hide his identity] said something that could have just as easily come off today’s satellite feed. It was a wish.
“A family, a home, someplace where you belong, a place where you’re loved, where you can love somebody. And God knows I need to love somebody.”
Love never was just a straight thing. As the court has now confirmed, it’s a human thing.
***
The NPR news story.
More Than A Dozen Landmarks Turned Rainbow.
The conservative case for marriage equality.
