Another day and another Pride Month attack from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
When she’s not bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or engaging in a double-act with fellow Rep. Matt Gaetz at pro-Trump rallies, Greene has had plenty to say about LGBTQ people.
Following earlier attacks on embassies flying Pride flags, she yesterday took to Twitter to lambast what may or may not be on the school curriculum.
Greene shared a video of a 14-year-old girl recently testifying before a school board meeting in a suburb of Indianapolis. The girl has not been named.
In the clip, the youngster, who has certainly had a difficult upbringing in her formative years, talks of being a “trauma child” and of being adopted from a foster home when she was four.
She complains about being taught about sexuality at school, which she believes should be a private matter. She also says she cannot see how she has white privilege, given her own background.
The clip was first shared on Twitter last week and went viral. Greene re-shared it yesterday and used it to attack schools talking about Critical Race Theory, gender identity of sexuality.
Critical race theory (CRT) has been talked about for the last 40 years in academic circles but has only more recently entered mainstream debate. It explores the idea that racism and patterns of discrimination in the US have shaped its society, legal systems and institutions.
In recent months, CRT has become an increasing lightning rod for some on the right of the GOP to attack anti-racism campaigners or those on the left.
Many educators and advocates believe talking about sexuality in school, and teaching kids that it’s OK to be gay, will reduce anti-LGBTQ bullying and would support many LGBTQ youngsters struggling with mental health issues. LGBTQ youth are at a far greater risk of attempting suicide than their straight peers. They contemplate suicide roughly three times as often as straight youth.
As explained by The Trevor Project, “All young people deserve access to safe and supportive public education, free from harassment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“However, policies known as ‘No Promo Homo’ and ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws ban educators from talking about LGBTQ people, issues and history entirely, or they only allow negative discussion. These laws keep supportive teachers from speaking out in the classroom, eliminating vital safe spaces for LGBTQ students.”
Civil rights organizations have filed two lawsuits in federal court against dozens of individuals for harassing and “ambushing” a Biden-Harris campaign bus in October. They are also suing the San Marcos Police Department, City Marshal’s Service, and the Director of Public Safety “who turned a blind eye to the attack.”
They are working with four individuals who were in or by the bus as named plaintiffs. One name plaintiff is Dr. Eric Cervini, an out historian and author of the book The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, which was chosen as a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History.
With his last name coming first in alphabetical order among his co-plaintiffs, Cervini is the first name on all legal paperwork and the lawsuits are legally known as Cervini v. Cisneros and Cervini v. Stapps.
“Everyone on the campaign bus was doing what good citizens of any political party should do — engaging in the electoral process,” Cervini said in a statement. “The intimidation and harassment we experienced is unacceptable, and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen in future elections.”
The non-profit pro-democracy group Protect Democracy announced that they are bringing the lawsuit alongside the Texas Civil Rights Project and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. The four plaintiffs they are representing are Cervini, Wendy Davis, David Gins, and Timothy Holloway. Davis and Gins were passengers, Holloway was driving, and Cervini was driving alongside the bus.
“We filed this lawsuit because everyone should be able to engage in peaceful political activity free from fear, intimidation, or threats of violence,” Davis stated with the announcement.
The bus was traveling to Austin from San Antonio for a last-minute campaign stop on October 30, a week before the election concluded. The Biden-Harris campaign had hoped to sway voters in the Lone Star State after polling had showed that the ticket had better chances at winning the state in the election than previously believed.
The campaign bus, only carrying campaign staff and not the then-candidates, was then stopped outside of San Marcos, Texas, by a group of vehicles on Interstate 35. That led to a blockade by pro-Trump demonstrators and a confrontation “well beyond safe limits,” said Texas Rep. Sheryl Cole (D).
Cervini tweeted at the time, “These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road. They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”
He added, “The police refused to help. When I flagged down one officer, he said his hands were tied: ‘not my jurisdiction.’ He was wearing a blue stripe bandana.
“…As a historian who studied the rise of the Third Reich, I can tell you: this is how a democracy dies,” he said.
The Daily Beast reported that staffers saw the swarm of demonstrators (by car and truck) surround the bus and were either trying to prevent it from proceeding, or lead it off the road. The bus and accompanying vehicles were forced to park, and the pro-Trump demonstrators circled it with their cars, bullhorns, and signs. At least one collision occurred during the incident, which was captured on video.
The convoy of demonstrators eventually left, but the police made no arrests, and Texas Democrats and the Biden-Harris campaign cancelled multiple events that weekend.
Right before those events, the President’s son, Donald Trump Jr., released a video encouraging Trump supporters in Texas to attend events that then-Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was at.
“It’d be great if you guys would all get together, head down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train welcome,” he said.
The state of Texas ended up giving its 38 electoral votes to Donald Trump, as the then-President took approximately 52 percent of the state’s popular vote, and Biden earned just under 47 percent.
Joe Biden would still win the presidential election without Texas, although Trump would not concede and instead attempted to overturn the election results. That culminated in a pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, in attempts to prevent certification of the election — although their efforts ultimately failed and the election was certified.
A boy in Georgia who had “gay” shaved into his head by family members has been placed in protective custody.
Video of the 12-year-old youth being berated by his family went viral on social media earlier this month. In the video, the boy — identified only as Tyler — is surrounded by family members, who call him a “gay ass bitch” and accuse him of “doing gay shit.”
The video zooms in on the boy’s head, showing “GAY” has been shaved into his hair. A man in the video is also shown slapping and punching the boy. The video was uploaded to Instagram Live on June 17 by the boy’s mother, where it caused outcry and demands for police intervention.
Read the full article. Activists have saved the video, a link to which is available in the story. I don’t want to share it here though, it’s so humiliating for the child.
President Biden on Friday named Jessica Stern as the State Department’s U.S. special envoy to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons, an announcement that coincides with the White House’s celebration of Pride month.
The position was left vacant under the administration of former President Trump. Biden will introduce Stern during remarks in the East Room Friday afternoon outlining his administration’s agenda to advance rights of LGBTQ+ people in the United States, the White House said.
Stern is currently the executive director at OutRight Action International, a group that advocates for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people around the world and works to stop discrimination and violence that they face.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the issue of whether the nation’s schools must allow students to use the bathroom that match their gender identities.
The court declined, without comment, to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, who has been at the center of a long legal battle with the school board in Gloucester County, Virginia. Grimm was born female but identified as male after his freshman year in high school, legally changing his name and beginning hormone therapy.
The principal at first gave him permission to use the boys’ bathroom, but the school board later adopted a policy saying restrooms were “limited to the corresponding biological genders.”
“For school officials, as for parents, the question how best to respond to a teenager who identifies with the opposite biological sex is often excruciatingly difficult,” lawyers for the school district told the Supreme Court. But the privacy rights of millions of students are at risk if their transgender classmates are allowed to use bathrooms matching their gender identities, they said.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, representing Grimm, told the court that treating him differently by requiring him to use separate single-stall bathrooms singled him out “and stigmatized him as unfit to use the same restroom as his peers.”
They said there was no need for the Supreme Court to take up the appeal, because the lower courts that have considered the issue reached the same conclusion — that treating transgender students differently violates a federal law, known as Title IX, that bans sex discrimination in school programs.
Monday’s order denying review in the case means Grimm’s victory in the appeals court remains intact.
The American Civil Liberties Union celebrated the action.
“This is an incredible victory for Gavin and for transgender students around the country,” said Josh Block, a senior staff attorney.
Grimm said he is glad the legal fight is over.
“Being forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s room was humiliating for me, and having to go to out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education,” he said. “Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said the Supreme Court should have taken the case.
Related issues may soon be headed to the Supreme Court, including disputes over allowing transgender students to play on the school sports teams matching their gender identities.
Grimm originally went to court in 2015, arguing that the school board’s policy made him feel ashamed and isolated, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, ruled in his favor. It said refusing to let students use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity would violate the federal law.
That ruling cited an Obama-era Education Department letter that said “a school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.” The appeals court found that to be a reasonable interpretation of Title IX, and the school district appealed to the Supreme Court.
Two things have changed since the first time the case came before the justices. The Supreme Court ruled last year that a federal civil rights law bans employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and now the Biden administration has interpreted that ruling as applying to Title IX as well.
“A school’s policy or actions that treat gay, lesbian, or transgender students differently from other students may cause harm,” a legal memo from the Department of Education said.
Today, 70 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. But on June 24, 2011, when the New York Legislature passed the state’s marriage equality measure, only 46 percent did, barely surpassing the 45 percent who opposed the right of gay couples to wed.
Five years earlier, in 2006, the New York Court of Appeals had determined the state constitution did not guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. That left advocates with only a legislative remedy.
Failed attempts to pass marriage equality measures in 2007 and 2009, however, left supporters deflated.
Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who served as speaker of the New York City Council during both attempts, said the 2009 defeat in the state Senate felt “like the rug had been pulled out from under us.”
“It was so personally painful and so, really not to be dramatic, but devastating,” Quinn said. “And it gave strength to the other side. New York is seen as a progressive state … so us not having marriage equality, it made a great excuse for other states not to do it.”
Then came 2011: Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sworn into office in January after making same-sex marriage a key plank in his campaign.
“Previously, we had Gov. [Eliot] Spitzer, and he kind of crashed and burned. Then we had Gov. [David] Paterson, and he had no political juice,” Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, who introduced five marriage bills over four years, said. “Then we get Cuomo: Here was a guy who was willing to make marriage a priority.”
Cuomo had first publicly supported same-sex marriage when he successfully ran for attorney general in 2006.
“I don’t want to be the governor who just fights for marriage equality,” he told attendees at an Empire State Pride Agenda dinner in fall 2010, the Observer reported then. “I want to be the governor who signs the law that makes equality a reality in the state of New York. And we’re going to get that done together.”
Attempting a ‘herculean feat’
On Jan. 5, 2011, in his first State of the State address, Cuomo promised same-sex marriage legislation would pass that year. With that mandate, activists got to work: The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, partnered with Freedom to Marry, a national organization, and Empire State Pride Agenda, a statewide LGBTQ group, to form New Yorkers United for Marriage, an umbrella group laser-focused on getting legislation passed. They targeted regions across the state, from the Hudson Valley to the Capital Region, to garner support from constituents.
“We built this huge campaign over time, over six months,” David Contreras Turley, then-associate regional field director at HRC, told City and State New York in 2019. “We ended up harnessing about 125,000 constituent contacts for what I know is one of the largest grassroots campaigns in terms of numbers, especially in the LGBT civil rights movement.”
The time was right, but advocates knew they had to strategize differently. Not only had they lost in New York in 2009, but that same year a same-sex marriage bill signed into law in Maine was overturned in a voter referendum.
“We had the opposite of momentum,” said Brian Ellner, who left then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office in 2011 to help lead New Yorkers for Marriage Equality. “No one thought that we could get it done with a Senate that was controlled by Republicans. They didn’t even think the Senate majority leader would bring it to a vote. And we needed to find four Republican yeses, two years after we lost in a Senate that was controlled by Democrats? It was quite a herculean feat.”
For O’Donnell, one of six openly LGBTQ lawmakers serving in the state Legislature at the time, the way to win was to make it more personal: Previously, he said, state Sen. Tom Duane, Assembly Member Deborah Glick and other gay legislators had kept their partners out of politics.
“I knew that that wasn’t going to work,” O’Donnell said. “If I wanted my colleagues to see John and I as part of a couple that deserves equal rights, I had to show them my relationship.”
Daniel J. O’Donnell, democratic member of the New York State Assembly, left, kisses his husband John Banta, right, as supporters of same-sex marriage rally on Christopher Street after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and declined to rule on the California law Proposition 8 in New York, on June 26, 2013.Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
O’Donnell and his now-husband, John Banta, met on the first day of classes at Catholic University in 1978 and began dating two years later.
“I brought John around to a much greater degree than my colleagues had,” he recalled. Banta, the director of special events for the Metropolitan Opera, was a name on his own, and the pair made something of a power couple in Albany.
“It didn’t hurt that he was tall, thin and good looking,” O’Donnell joked. “But, more importantly, he was there, and people saw it as voting against us, rather than just voting against an issue.”
Duane also decided to start bringing his then-partner to Albany more often.
Preaching to the unconverted
They worked diligently to garner Republican support because they didn’t want marriage equality to become a party-line issue, “even though in my heart I knew it clearly was going to be,” O’Donnell said. He also sent weekly letters to his colleagues, with appeals coming from many different angles.
“One might be a poll, one was a letter from a California state senator who went from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes’ and got re-elected anyway,” he recalled. “One was a letter from Mildred Loving — who was, of course, the plaintiff in Loving v. Virginia, which took down anti-miscegenation laws at the Supreme Court — saying this is the same thing. We went around and around pivoting from the moral issue, to the legal issue, to the political issue, to try to give people enough cover to feel that they could vote for it.”
At the end of each letter, O’Donnell wrote, “John and I thank you for taking the time to consider this.”
For Ellner, a new approach meant reaching a new audience and changing the message.
“We couldn’t just talk in an echo chamber if we wanted to convert people to the cause,” he said. “At the time, support for marriage equality was barely at 50 percent in New York, I think, and we really wanted to get it to a majority, if not supermajority, before the vote.”
On March 9, 2011, Cuomo held a meeting with legislators, lobbyists and other major players inside the Capitol’s Red Room. After the disastrous 2009 vote, he wanted to be certain they weren’t working at cross purposes.
“He called a bunch of us to Albany to have a meeting about all of us who were working to get this done, to make sure we were aligned and coordinated,” Ellner recalled. “He made it very clear that this was a very, very high priority for him, if not his top priority that session. I don’t think he could have leaned in any harder to use all of his popularity and his influence.”
What many people don’t understand, O’Donnell said, is that “part of New York is more like Ohio” than New York City.
“We have very rural areas, we have very poor areas, we have some beautiful places. It’s a wonderful place to visit, but it’s not all liberal New York City people,” he said.
As he lobbied for the bill, O’Donnell said, “many senators said to me privately, ‘I think it’s the right thing to do, but my voters won’t tolerate it.’”
Ellner said he had senators, both Democrats and Republicans, telling him they needed to hear from their constituents that there was support. Legislators claimed that, in 2009, voter contacts “were running something like 3 to 1, or even 4 to 1, against marriage,” Ellner said.
So New Yorkers for Marriage Equality launched an enormous field effort with volunteers working across districts — knocking on doors, standing outside supermarkets — to talk to constituents and get postcards signed.
“When you talk to these senators, it’s about voter contact from within the district,” Ellner said. “They don’t care about a national email petition. They don’t care that Brian Ellner from Chelsea wrote to a senator upstate. They want to hear from their constituents, either by phone or preferably by mail. The mail gets counted and weighed, and that has a huge impact, because many politicians are focused on survival.”
Ellner said his team would get intelligence about a senator they had a shot at winning over, and then they would flood that lawmaker’s district with workers to get signatures.
“And if we heard that someone was definitely a ‘no,’ we would move everyone out of that district and into another one,” Ellner said. “We had really dedicated young people throughout the state who were couch surfing.”
That was the less glamorous part of the campaign, he admitted, “but there was no way we were going to let these senators hear more ‘nays’ than ‘yeas.’”
New Yorkers for Marriage Equality also launched a massive video campaign, with famous New Yorkers making the case for same-sex marriage. Directed by documentarian Annie Sundberg (“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”), the videos featured celebrities (Julianne Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Anna Wintour), athletes (New York Ranger Sean Avery and Michael Strahan of the Giants) and establishment types (Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and police Commissioner William Bratton).https://iframe.nbcnews.com/ZZoTZob
“We really wanted to broaden the support and show that there was widespread support across all different communities,” said Ellner, who knew Sundberg from Dartmouth College. “We just wanted this drumbeat of constant positivity, especially toward the end of the session when the legislature really slows down and there’s all kinds of deal-making going on. And frankly, we didn’t want to give the media the opportunity to write negative stories — to say that this was being derailed.”
Advocates turned up the heat on state senators, pressing their friends, relatives, even their rabbis, to track their vote and bring them to a “yes.”
But the clock was ticking. Cuomo had made his declaration in January and called everyone together in March. By late May a bill still hadn’t come forward, and the session ended in June.
Finally, on June 13, 2011, three Democratic state senators who had opposed same-sex marriage in 2009 — Joseph Addabbo Jr., Shirley Huntley and Carl Kruger — announced they would vote “yes” this time.
The final countdown
The Marriage Equality Act was introduced in the Assembly on June 14, and the following day, it passed the chamber 80 to 63. Though a healthy margin, it was a smaller one than the 2009 measure enjoyed.
A vote in the Senate was delayed while Cuomo negotiated with Republican leadership. For more than a week, thousands rallied outside the Capitol on both sides of the issue.
Finally, on June 24, the last day of the legislative session, Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos announced that “same sex marriage legislation will be brought to the full Senate for an up or down vote.”
O’Donnell and Banta went to the Senate floor to watch the proceedings.
“The Capitol was entirely filled with people, so it’s hot as hell, and there are thousands of people on the stairways, in the hallways, everywhere,” O’Donnell said. “As each vote was taken, John was there. All my colleagues knew who he was. He was sitting in the audience, and many of the senators knew who he was. So we’re standing on the back of the floor of the Senate, and people are walking up to him and I and giving us both hugs and kisses.”
The vote was a nail-biter till the end, O’Donnell said — a rarity in Albany, where most bills don’t come to the floor unless passage is practically guaranteed.
State Sen. Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie, a Republican who voted against same-sex marriage in 2009, announced he would vote “yes” the same day the bill came to the Senate floor.
“I have defined doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality,” he said during the debate on the measure. “That equality includes the definition of marriage. I fear that to do otherwise would fly in the face of my upbringing.”
‘All New Yorkers are equal under the law’
Late in the evening of June 24, 2011, the Marriage Equality Act passed the GOP-controlled Senate 33 to 29, with all Democrats and four Republicans voting in its favor. Cuomo signed it into law the same night at five minutes to midnight.
“With the world watching, the Legislature, by a bipartisan vote, has said that all New Yorkers are equal under the law,” Cuomo said in a statement. “With this vote, marriage equality will become a reality in our state, delivering long overdue fairness and legal security to thousands of New Yorkers.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the Marriage Equality Act, with Harry Bronson, Matthew Titone, Daniel O’Donnell, Bob Duffy, Tom Duane and James Alesi, on June 24, 2011.Judy Sanders / Office of Andrew M. Cuomo
The New York Marriage Equality Act amended New York’s Domestic Relations Law to affirm that “no government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection or responsibility relating to marriage shall differ based on the parties to the marriage being the same sex or a different sex.”
Quinn, who was in City Hill at the time trying to pass the city’s budget, remembers getting word during a press conference with Bloomberg. A staffer gestured wildly from the sidelines with a giant thumbs up.
“Oh God, as a New Yorker, it just made me so proud,” Quinn said, “and gratified that, finally, a discriminatory fact had been erased from the record. It meant a lot. It’s hard to hold your head up higher as a New Yorker, because we’re a pretty arrogant group, but I felt I could hold my head up higher.”
Ellner, who was in Albany as the vote was taken, said his only regret was not celebrating at the Stonewall Inn with the thousands of LGBTQ people and allies who had gathered there.
“It was kind of bittersweet to see it on CNN,” he said. “But, no, honestly, it was amazing.”
Banta stayed with O’Donnell in Albany that night, then the two returned to New York City the following morning. It was gay Pride weekend, and they marched in the parade with O’Donnell’s 5-year-old nephew.
“He told all his friends he was going to ‘Uncle Danny’s parade,’” O’Donnell said. “Literally, when the march would stop moving, people would chant my name on Fifth Avenue. But really, there was such a sense of euphoria — and relief.”
‘It felt miraculous’
The New York Marriage Equality Act took effect Sunday, July 24, 2011, and couples started getting married that same day.
One of them was Jonathan Thompson and Jonathan Polansky, who got married at the Queens courthouse in Forest Hills, after dating since 2002.
“We’d been together so long at that point that once the vote happened, we just sort of looked at each other and said, ‘So, we’re doing this, right?’” Thompson said.
It wasn’t a big romantic gesture, he said, but they were acutely aware of how monumental the moment was.
“It had been such a long push for marriage in New York, and we’d all been disappointed so many times before,” Thompson said. “When the bill actually passed — and during Pride Month, no less — it felt miraculous. There was just this communal feeling of emotion, and we just wanted to be a part of it.”
That wasn’t the only reason, though.
“If I’m being honest, I was also a little distrustful,” he said. “We wanted to do it right away, before anyone could take it away.”
The city had initially announced a lottery for the first day — Thompson and Polansky applied and won. Then officials decided to let everyone who had entered the lottery get a marriage license.
“So it ended up being a big, huge event,” Thompson said. “I remember it was extremely hot. We wanted to dress up, but it was stifling. So, we just went with business casual.”
It was a Sunday, when normally the courthouse would have been closed. But clerks and judges volunteered to work that day.
“Just to know that everyone there was rooting for us was a monumental thing,” Thompson said. “We took a number and sat in the waiting area, where we ran into some friends who were volunteers. Everyone there was talking to each other and taking pictures. It was definitely a sense of community and excitement.”
As a council member, Quinn didn’t have the power to perform ceremonies, but she was determined everything would go smoothly.
“My office, the speaker’s office, asserted itself into the full planning process,” she said. “I went to four of the five boroughs to congratulate and meet people who were getting married and also to thank the council staff that were there. I’ll never forget this one intern we had that summer. … He was holding up this huge sign that said, ‘This way to photos.’ Just the joy on his face and the joy of the people who were following him. I told him it looked like he was leading a parade.”
She recalled seeing City Clerk Mike McSweeney conducting the first ceremony in Manhattan, for Connie Kopelov, 85, and Phyllis Siegel, 76. The women had met in the mid-1980s volunteering with SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ older adults.
Phyllis Siegel, right, kisses her wife, Connie Kopelov, after exchanging vows at the Manhattan City Clerk’s Office with New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn in attendance, back left, on July 24, 2011.Michael Appleton / Pool via Getty Images file
“It was magical,” Quinn said. “It was really, like, you couldn’t believe that a law, which on some level is just a piece of paper, could have such an impact. But it did — and it has.”
Everything had happened so fast that the offices of the city clerk hadn’t even had time to change its paperwork.
“The forms still had ‘man’ and ‘woman’ on it,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t embarrassing, though. It was amusing. It was nice. It was this feeling of, ‘We’re not gonna wait to fix it; let’s just get going, and we’ll all figure it out as we go.’ That was exciting.”
More than 800 couples registered to get married in New York City that first day alone, according to The Associated Press.
“People were booking flights to New York to get married,” O’Donnell said. “We didn’t have a residency requirement, so anybody could come here from anywhere in the world and get a marriage license and bring it back to where they’re from.”
‘Tremendous momentum’
For O’Donnell, the writing was now on the wall for federal marriage equality. Vermont, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia had already passed marriage laws legislatively, but New York was by far the largest state.
“Even in places like Mississippi or Alabama, at some point they were going to have a problem with the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution if they say, ‘We’ll accept straight marriages from New York but not gay ones.’” he said. “So it was coming.”
Ellner recalled “tremendous momentum” among activists coming out of the victory in New York.
“It felt like it was a matter of time,” he said. “It all shifted radically and so quickly. It was really the velocity that was surprising, but we felt, ‘As New York goes, so goes the nation.’”
A group walks down Fifth Avenue during the New York City gay pride march on June 26, 2011.Stan Honda / AFP via Getty Images file
It wasn’t a bloodless victory, though: The four Republican state senators who crossed the aisle to support the bill all were out of office within the next few years.
In September 2012, Sen. Roy McDonald, who represented conservative Saratoga County, was defeated in a Republican primary by Kathy Marchione. During the race, Marchione questioned McDonald’s conservative bona fides, claiming he backed same-sex marriage to secure campaign donations.
“I could have found an easier way to get re-elected,” McDonald countered during a primary debate, insisting he supported the bill as “a human being that cared.”
“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” he told reporters. “You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f— it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
But an undeniable tipping point had been reached: In 2012, Maine, Maryland and Washington all enacted same-sex marriage measures at the ballot, and, for the first time ever, the Democratic National Convention adopted a political platform endorsing same-sex marriage. That May, then-Vice President Joe Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage, quickly followed by President Barack Obama.
The following year, a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, and nine more states recognized same-sex marriage — five through legislation (Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, Hawaii and Illinois).
“We showed that you could do it,” O’Donnell said of New York’s LGBTQ advocates. “I offered to help anybody out there who wanted to know how to do it, because it takes work. In the House, I flirted with some colleagues, I threatened others. I promised every single one of them if they voted ‘yes’ that I would invite them to my wedding, which I did — our wedding had 450 people at it. They all came.”
O’Donnell said he had toyed with getting married on that first day, but July 24 was Banta’s birthday, “and I didn’t need to be the first,” he said.
The pair married on Jan. 29, 2012, at Guastavino’s in Manhattan, with both Democratic and Republican legislators, the state comptroller, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy and Cuomo all in attendance.
“If you’ve never thought you could get married, you never spend any time thinking about what your wedding would be,” O’Donnell said. “The two things that I wanted were a wedding cake and an actual honeymoon. So we had our wedding, we had our cake and then we went to Paris.”
The Stonewall Inn’s owners say they won’t serve certain beers at the famous LGBTQ bar during Pride weekend to protest manufacturer Anheuser-Busch’s political contributions to some politicians who have supported anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Co-owners Stacy Lentz and Kurt Kelly said they would be instituting the ban on Friday in support of the “Keep Your Pride” campaign, a recently launched effort highlighting five companies that it says advertise support during Pride but have also made contributions to anti-LGBTQ lawmakers.
The campaign, a project of Corporate Accountability Action, used data compiled from the National Institute on Money in Politics to show that Anheuser-Busch contributed more than $35,000 to 29 legislators it described as anti-LGBTQ between 2015 and 2020.
“We just felt Stonewall having the platform, the power to do this, it was important to stand up,” Lentz said. “We really just want Anheuser-Busch to stop donating to lawmakers who are trying to legalize discrimination.”
In a statement, Anheuser-Busch said, “We support candidates for public office whose policy positions and objectives support investments in our communities, job creation, and industry growth.”
The statement continued, “Together, with our brands, we have a clear role to play in bringing real change and creating an inclusive and equitable world where we cherish and celebrate one another.”
It was at an earlier incarnation of the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 when bar patrons fought with police who had come to carry out a raid, which galvanized gay rights activism around the country and the world.
A conservative Republican lawmaker in the House of Delegates took to Twitter and other social media platforms this past weekend announcing that he is gay. Twenty-four year old Joshua Higginbotham said that he felt he owed it to the voters of West Virginia, after recently deciding to share it with his family and friends.
Higginbotham, who was first elected to the House when he was only 19, represents rural Putnam County located alongside Interstate 64 between the state’s capital city of Charleston to the East and Huntington to the West. His campaign adverts have all trumpeted his avid support of the Second Amendment as well as taking a pro-life position.
However, a check of some of his recent legislation shows a more progressive mindset. He is lead sponsor on House Bill 2998, a measure amending the State’s current codes relating to unlawful discriminatory practices in four categories covered by the West Virginia Human Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, adding language that prohibits discrimination based upon age and sexual orientation, or gender identity; and defining “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
That measure, earlier in the legislative session, led to a series of conflicts which involved the state’s only other openly gay lawmaker, Democratic Delegate Cody Thompson (D43-Marion). Republican House Delegate John Mandt, who resigned after posting an anti-gay slur but then was re-elected drew harsh criticism for an extended online diatribe opposing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity the Associated Press reported earlier this year on February 7, 2021.
In his social media video as well as in an interview with reporter Anthony Conn from the local ABC News affiliate WCHS 8 in Charleston, Higginbotham said, “I am still a Christian. People think that gay people can’t be Christians. I believe God loves me no matter what. I’m still a conservative Republican. That’s rare, I know, but you can be gay and Republican. You can be gay and conservative.”
He added referring to his conservative politics that “nothing changes except now [you] know about my personal life.”
The statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Fairness West Virginia applauded the delegate’s decision to come out. “We think that it’s great that Delegate Higginbotham can lead his authentic life now. This must be a big burden that’s lifted off his shoulders,” Executive Director Andrew Schneider told WCHS ABC 8.
There are some in the state who are critical of Higginbotham. One source who asked to not be identified, told the Blade in a phone call Tuesday that Higginbotham’s support of former President Trump raised some doubts as to his veracity especially in issues surrounding Transgender West Virginians.
A Florida homeowners association has ordered a gay couple to remove a small rainbow flag from their front yard, but the couple has no intention of taking it down.
Bob Plominski and Mike Ferrari of Oakland Park, Florida, were issued a citation on June 5 that told them to take the flag down by June 15 or pay a $50 daily fine. The couple put it up to celebrate Pride Month.
Plominski and Ferrari told NBC Miami they were confused by the notice because they have flown the pride flag before and posted political signs in the neighborhood without any problems.
“I got upset,” Plominski said. “We’ve done this before and it’s a simple showing of our pride to the community and it’s up for 30 days. We were in shock they were going to do that.
Bob Brusseau, president of the Eastland Cove Homeowners Association, said the five-person board sent the couple a violation notice after one of the association’s members complained based on a rule that restricts residents to displaying only U.S. or military flags in the neighborhood.
“It’s in the document, and you can be sued,” he told NBC News.
Fines actually won’t be enforced until around 30 to 40 days from the issuing date of the citation, according to Brusseau.
“Personally, I’ll vote against any fine,” he said, adding that two board members didn’t even wish to pursue the case, but the other three did.
Plominski and Ferrari have a right to appeal the association’s decision before a grievance committee.
“I really think the citation is because it’s a gay pride flag and someone in the neighborhood is offended, simple as that,” Ferrari told NBC Miami.
The couple said they will continue to fly their pride flag until the end of the month.
“It’s going to stay up until June 30,” Plominski told NBC Miami. “We as a community worked really hard to earn and get to where we are today. We’re not going to back down on this one.”
The driver of a pickup truck that struck two men, killing one, at a Pride parade in Florida was connected to the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, and so were the victims, the group’s president said Saturday.
The truck was to be part of the chorus’ entry in the Stonewall Pride Parade in Wilton Manors, the organization said.
“Our fellow Chorus members were those injured and the driver is also a part of the Chorus family,” Justin Knight said in a statement. “To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community.”
One man was killed and another injured after they were struck by the truck Saturday evening just as the parade was about to get underway near Fort Lauderdale, officials said.
“We know two individuals marching to celebrate inclusion and equality were struck by a vehicle,” Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a statement. “One person has died and the other remains hospitalized.
The victims’ names have not been released. The survivor was expected to recover, said Det. Ali Adamson at a news conference.
She said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
“We are evaluating all possibilities,” Adamson said. “Nothing is out of the question right now.”
She said the driver was being questioned, and the FBI was assisting with the inquiry.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, who was at the event, said that he and others were “terrorized” by the crash. In a statement, he said he was concerned it may have been intentional.
“Law enforcement took what appeared obvious to me and others nearby and investigated further — as is their job,” he added. “As the facts continue to be pieced together, a picture is emerging of an accident in which a truck careened out of control.”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who was also at the event, said she is “so heartbroken by what took place at this celebration.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., tweeted, “Devastated by the horror we saw at Wilton Manors Pride.”
“I’m so sorry, Wilton Manors,” he said. “I’m so sorry, my friends.”
Tony said deputies witnessed the collision.
“This tragedy took place within feet of me and my BSO team, and we are devastated having witnessed this horrific incident,” he said, referring to the sheriff’s office. “Our prayers are with the victims and their families.”
