Fifty Years Ago: Bay Gays, 1976

A compilation of news reports on the burgeoning "homosexual community" in San Francisco, in the freewheeling carnival days before Harvey Milk, before the riots, before AIDS and all that.  I was still in the closet, and though I knew I was gay I didn't feel any kinship with the screaming queens out there.  The two quiet, polite, monogamous guys interviewed in the first clip here were more my speed, and still are.  But San Francisco was in the vanguard of the gay rights movement, which has benefited us all from coast to coast.  

BTW, David Goodstein, who appears in the first clip, was owner and publisher of The Advocate, which I later subscribed to for several years.

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How Far We've Come

The White House after the Obergefell ruling, June 26, 2015.
Click to enlarge.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of American independence - founded explicitly upon the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - it is quite poignant for me to reflect upon the evolution of gay rights in my lifetime.  Here are some thought-provoking videos for old and young alike.

Here's Steve Hartman on CBS Sunday Morning in 2015, just after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage throughout the United States:

But CBS wasn't always so gay-friendly. Author and lecturer Steven Capsuto reviews two CBS News specials from 1967 and 1980:

In case you've never seen it, here is the full 1967 report, The Homosexuals, hosted by Mike Wallace (who later regretted the homophobic remarks he made at the time):

I was in high school then and never saw that report, which is just as well. I had fooled around with some boys my own age, but for many years to come, I still envisioned growing up and getting married to a woman one day - with the cozy cottage, the picket fence, the 2.5 kids - that happily-ever-after presented in books and movies and TV shows, not to mention the Bible.  Why wouldn't you want that?  That's just what grown-ups did, like your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and everyone else in your church and your neighborhood.  A desirable, and indeed necessary outcome for most of the human race.

But some of us are not called to that conclusion.  I didn't know I was gay in 1967 - "gay" meaning homosexual was not part of everyday speech until the Gay Liberation marches and protests in 1970 and thereafter made national news. And I certainly didn't think of myself as a homo or a queer - those awful monsters who lurked in dark alleys that everyone hated - but no one ever saw in the light of day. Mainly they were just schoolard taunts. 

But the awful, unwelcome truth dawned on me before I finished high school, and I spent most of the next decade trying to pray it away.  By 1980, though, I had come out at college, and after Woodstock, Vietnam, and Watergate - not to mention Deep Throat, Playgirl and Barbara Eden's navel - the big-city world had changed a great deal. News coverage of Gay Lib - later Gay Pride - made people aware of things they never knew existed before, and gay people far from the east and west coasts began to come out and find one another - but changes in traditional attitudes in the Deep South were still small and slow. 

It was nothing at all like San Francisco - which from this late date appears as a carnival of the doomed, as shown in this report, Gay Power, Gay Politics:

Still to come were the AIDS crisis, ACT UP, and the Quilt; and beyond that, the long struggles in the courts and legislatures to gain the right to hold a job, join the military, and get married.  I'll be posting more historical videos and links this month that may touch on those subjects and others.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

--George Santayana

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My 5000th Post - Happy Pride!

Do you know that June 26 is a momentous day in gay rights history?  On this date in 2003, 2013, and 2015, the United States Supreme Court made three major rulings that firmly established our right to love whom we love, serve in the military, and get married.  Look those up here.

And today the Blue Truck has passed a big milestone - 5000 posts, over 9000 comments, nearly 4 million pageviews, according to my Blogger dashboard:

Click to enlarge.

So instead of the usual Friday men, here's a rerun of me and M.P. back in June of 2010, cooling off and splashing around at Chickasaw National Recreation Area, a beautiful big green park up in Oklahoma.

Now much less adventurous in our 70s, we're content just to stay home, out of the sun and under the a/c.  We well recall a time when "homosexual" was a dirty word, a mortal sin, a major crime, and a psychotic disorder, and are very grateful that we have lived to see gay couples living together openly and happily just as all other ordinary people do.

Hope all my truckbuddies are having a great weekend wherever you are.  Life is a rolling river - enjoy what you can while you can. 

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Ten Years On: Marriage Equality Day

June 26 should be a red-letter day on every gay and lesbian calendar - the day the Supreme Court extended marriage equality to all Americans in these momentous words that will ring through centuries to come:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

—Justice Anthony Kennedy, Obergefell v. Hodges majority opinion (emphasis mine)

Here's the NBC news report on that day and President Obama's eloquent remarks:

Here's your Head Trucker's post on that day.  M.P. and I were teary-eyed with joy.  I thought, finally -- it's over, we won, now life can flow on smoothly and happily for us gay folks, as it should.

But of course life doesn't always go as we expect.  Now we face new challenges.  Let's stay united, firm, and courageous.  Our love is here to stay!

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The Right to Love: An American Family

This video was produced in 2012, but somehow I totally missed it back then, and just happened to come across it last week.  Be sure to watch the 2022 update as well. 

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Biden Signs Respect for Marriage Act

Biden signs same-sex marriage protections into law

In a ceremony at the south front of the White House, President Biden today signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law, thereby extending the protections of federal law to millions of gay, lesbian, and interracial couples nationwide.  A landmark piece of legislation that wipes DOMA off the books.

And I have lived to see this day.

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Senate Passes the Respect for Marriage Act

More good news:  Last night, the Senate passed the amended Respect for Marriage Act by a vote of 61-36, with all Democrats and 12 Republicans voting in favor of the bill.  (Three senators were absent.)  Now the bill must be approved again by the House before it is sent to President Biden for signing into law.

 

It is important to note that the bill does not require any state to perform same-sex marriages, although at the moment all do. But if they should change their minds - particularly, if the Supreme Court were to overturn its 2015 ruling in Obergefell - all states would still have to recognize marriages legally performed in another state or foreign country.  

The bill as passed by the Senate also explicitly protects interracial marriages; does not require recognition of polygamous marriages; repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (1996); and provides exemptions for churches and other religiously affiliated organizations. 

See the text of the Senate version below the jump.

Mormon Church Comes Out for Gay Marriage

 

Huh, that's a shocker.  (Remember the Prop 8 fight?)  Read all about it in the Salt Lake Tribune.

And for your information, the Respect for Marriage Act was first introduced in Congress in 2009. and has been reintroduced several times.  But this year, the bill was finally passed in the House last July by a vote of 267-157, with the support of 47 Republicans.  

Now it's up to the Senate, if 10 Republicans will vote for the bill, and Democratic leaders think the votes are in the bag. So we should have more reason to celebrate soon; in fact, the Senate is holding a preliminary vote today.  So stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.

Update, 7 p.m.:  The preliminary vote passed 62-37, with 12 Republican senators voting in favor of it.  A final vote on the bill is expected on Friday, after which the Senate version will be sent to the House for approval.

 

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House Passes Respect for Marriage Act

 

In an historic vote, the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon passed the Respect for Marriage Act, 267-157.  All Democratic members voted for the bill, and so did 47 Republicans.  Seven Republicans abstained from voting.

The bill enacts into federal law the right to same-sex marriage and to interracial marriage.  Specifically, it does four main things:

1.  Repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which permitted states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages.

2.  Requires states to give "full faith and credit" to marriages of "two individuals" validly performed in other states, regardless of "race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin."

3.  Requires the federal government to recognize all such marriages.

4.  Gives federal courts power to enforce these provisions.

Full text here.

Search the official roll call here to find out how your state's representatives voted.

Having read the text of the bill, it seems to me that it does not force any state to perform same-sex marriages; but every state has to recognize them as valid marriages.  However, I am not a lawyer, and this blog post is not legal advice.

To become law, the bill must next be passed by the Senate and signed by President Biden, who has already said he is ready and willing to do so.  At this time, it is not known when the Senate will take up the bill.  In order to avoid a filibuster, 60 votes will be needed to pass it in that chamber, split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats.

Still, this is quite a remarkable vote, and calls for at least a wine spritzer to celebrate.  I well recall that when I came out in college more than 40 years ago, the idea that gays could have any legal relationship was just a sweet, idealistic fantasy.  

But I have lived to see this day.

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UK Gay Pride 1979

This BBC documentary from 1979 shows what progress had been made in the ten years since Stonewall, and what yet remained to do.  It provides an interesting perspective, slightly different in details but essentially similar to the American gay rights movement at that time. 

A PBS show from about the same year called Word Is Out was a must-see event for me, still closeted at the time, but the full program is strangely missing from YouTube. I wonder if any of my truckbuddies remember watching it. Here is a trailer:

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Pride of Ukraine

A month of war in Ukraine, who knows when it will end?  I've not blogged much this week because I've about reached my emotional limit - one can only stand to watch so much horror before one has to look away.  I haven't stopped caring and praying for those poor people over there, but I'll leave the news reporting to the folks who are paid to do it.

Gay rights in Ukraine are far behind those in the West.  I recently came across this documentary about the Ukrainian gay pride movement in 2012-2014; as such, it's an unfinished story.  It's partly in English and partly in Ukrainian with English subtitles, and has some over-long interviews that I right-arrowed through, but it gives an interesting look into Ukrainian society at that time.  See what you think.

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Some reports on the general situation in Ukraine at this point:

 

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Being Gay in Ukraine

Pride march in Kyiv, June 2019.  Click to enlarge.

It just occurred to me to look into this subject.  Here are few videos, and I may add more as I find them.

1. From the Voice of America, posted February 12, 2021 - two weeks before Russia invaded:

 

 2. Yuri, a gay Ukrainian man, talks about life as a gay man in Ukraine - posted in July 2016:

 

3.  In January 2019, the BBC reported on this gay Ukrainian army veteran:

 4. Two Ukrainian young men got married in Denmark - posted in June 2019:

 

News articles:

• The Atlantic Council, a non-partisan group, reported on June 24, 2021, that while still far behind the rest of the Western world, Ukraine has made modest progress on recognizing LGBTQI rights in recent years.

• The journal Foreign Policy reported on February 18, 2022, that U. S. intelligence has said that Russia has drawn up detailed target lists of Ukrainians to be arrested or killed, including journalists, religious and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQI+ people.

• CBS News reported on February 24, 2022, that gays and lesbians fear persecution by the Russian invaders.

• The Daily Beast has an article on Ukraine's gay combat volunteers, posted February 28, 2022.

• And for the record, your Head Trucker posted this photo of a vicious attack on the leader of Kiev Pride in 2012:

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Biden Orders Sweeping LGBT Workplace Protections

 

BIG NEWS:  You can't be fired for being gay or transgender, and the President has your back.

President Biden just issued an executive order protecting Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — a turning point in our fight for equality under the law. https://t.co/fSuxT8dF8w

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) January 21, 2021

On his first day in his new job, President Biden has signed an executive order directing all federal agencies and employees to enforce and comply with the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling last June that extended Title VII workplace protections to LGBT employees.  Justice Neil Gorsuch - a Trump appointee - wrote the majority opinion, summarizing it thus:

In Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Hooray!  The President and the Supreme Court have now extended the equal protection of the laws to gay people and trans people.   Finally.  But now is the time for the Congress to make it the law of the land in so many words; equal rights should not depend on the ruling of a court (which can later overrule itself) or on the stroke of a President's pen (which a later President can revoke).  It's true, an Act of  Congress can be repealed by a later Congress; but that would put a sort of triple lock on our equality, which is important.  Perhaps we might even dream of a future day when equality is written into the Constitution - but for now we should look to the Democratic majority in Congress to seal it into law.

Nevertheless, thank you, Mr. President, for upholding justice for all Americans today.  Proud of you!

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Happy Pride 2020

Imagine if there was a President who celebrated Gay Pride . . .




A few dates to remember in the progress of gay rights over the last half-century:

June 28 - July 3, 1969: Stonewall Riots, New York City

June 28, 1970: First Gay Pride marches, NYC and other cities

May 20, 1996:  Romer v. Evans

June 26, 2003: Lawrence v. Texas

December 22, 2010: Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed

September 20, 2011: DADT repeal implemented

June 26, 2013: United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry

June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

June 15, 2020: Bostock v. Clayton County


Today's quote:

I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people:  they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications.

I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

--Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), 2008

Bonus: The Night Michelle Escaped from the White House

Supreme Court Rules: You Can't Be Fired for Being Gay

Wow!  Oh my, what a happy, happy day - the Civil Rights Act protects the gays and trans folk too:

Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit. 

Hooray!  Read the Court's 6-3 ruling (172 pages, PDF) here.


NBC News reports today's stunning decision:




And your Head Trucker is ashamed to report that he did not really get the whole trans thing until he learned about Aimee Stephens - who, sadly, died last month of kidney failure:



According to the ACLU, this is the first trans civil rights case ever heard by the Supreme Court.


In short:  If you don't have time to read the whole decision, Amy Howe at Scotusblog offers an overview of the ruling, written by Justice Gorsuch - remember how everybody feared he would be such a conservative jurist? - as well as the dissenting opinions.  Among other things, she notes:

Gorsuch addressed some of the broader concerns that the employers had raised in the three cases, about the effect of the court’s ruling on issues like bathrooms in the workplace, locker rooms and dress codes. None of those issues, Gorsuch reiterated, were before the court in these cases. Instead, he stressed, the court is ruling only that an “employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.” Whether sex-segregated bathrooms or locker rooms or dress codes might violate Title VII “are questions for future cases,” Gorsuch wrote.

The same is true, Gorsuch added, for questions involving the relationship between Title VII and federal laws and constitutional provisions protecting religious freedom. Although “other employers in other cases may raise free exercise arguments that merit careful consideration, none of the employers before us today represent in this Court that compliance with Title VII will infringe their own religious liberties in any way.”

Caution:  It appears from a quick glance at the Wikipedia article on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the law applies only to an employer "who has fifteen (15) or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year"; however, your Head Trucker is no lawyer, and you should consult an attorney if you have any questions about the law.

Silver lining:  Michelle Goldberg opines in the New York Times on the irony of this decision in the era of Trump:

[T]he thrilling 6-3 decision the Supreme Court just issued upholding L.G.B.T. equality wouldn’t be as devastating to the religious right if it had happened under a President Clinton.

Before Monday, you could legally be fired for being gay, bisexual or transgender in 26 states. Now the court has ruled that gay and transgender people are protected by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex. The decision has extra cultural force because it was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, and joined by the conservative chief justice John Roberts. . . .

The phrase “But Gorsuch” is shorthand for how conservatives justify all the moral compromises they’ve made in supporting Trump; controlling the Supreme Court makes it all worth it. So there’s a special sweetness in Gorsuch spearheading the most important L.G.B.T. rights decision since the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

This isn’t simply Schadenfreude. The fact that this momentous ruling was written by a right-wing judge sends a message that progress on L.G.B.T. rights will be very hard to reverse.

More is needed:  Justice Kavanaugh's dissent is well-written, well-reasoned, and well worth reading in full, going as it does to the very heart of constitutional government in these United States.  Susan Howe summarizes:

He began by acknowledging that the arguments for “amending” Title VII “are very weighty.” He also observed that the Supreme Court “has previously stated, and I fully agree, that gay and lesbian Americans ‘cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.’” But, he continued, the job of judges is “not to make or amend the law,” and, as it currently stands, “Title VII does not prohibit employment discrimination because of sexual orientation.” . . .

Kavanaugh contended (and appeared to agree with his colleagues in the majority) that courts should follow the ordinary meaning of the words in a statute, because that is how both members of Congress and the public would understand the law. . . .  And here, in Kavanaugh’s view, the ordinary meaning of the phrase “discriminate because of sex” does not extend to discrimination based on sexual orientation. . . .

Kavanaugh concluded by acknowledging “the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law. They have exhibited extraordinary vision, tenacity, and grit—battling often steep odds in the legislative and judicial arenas, not to mention in their daily lives. They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today’s result.” But Kavanaugh reiterated his belief that Congress, rather the Supreme Court, should have been the source of that result.

Frankly, your Head Trucker is inclined to agree with Justice Kavanaugh on the simple basis of plain English.  In all honesty, it does seem like doublespeak for Justice Gorsuch to say on the one hand that the Court must be bound by the plain text of the law; and on the other hand, to define the word sex with a meaning that is not part of the plain English meaning.  To say that cat means all four-legged creatures is not to state the meaning of the word, but to add meaning to the word.

However, if a law were to forbid, let us say, cruelty to cats, and you interpret it to mean that cruelty to all four-legged animals is forbidden, then that is good morality, but bad English and bad interpretation, and highly liable to be contradicted by another interpreter.  Because it is good morality, we will accept what the Court has so graciously given us; but can we count on it to be a lasting gift as years go by?  Or merely a cupful of smoke?

It's also important to note that the Court's ruling does not rest on any constitutional right; the justices based their decision solely on the Civil Rights Act, which is merely a federal law, not the Constitution itself.

Therefore, to remove all possible doubts and objections in future, it is imperative that Congress itself amend the Civil Rights Act to specifically prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Do keep that in mind, fellas, as we move forward - always remember that the Supreme Court can change its collective mind, and often has, down through the years. The protections we received today must be cemented into federal law at the first opportunity.

The same goes for for the right to same-sex marriage declared by the Court five years ago in Obergefell v. Hodges - which Chief Justice Roberts angrily dissented from at the time as another example of "legislating from the bench."

Of course, Congress can change its mind, too, and laws can be repealed; even provisions of the Constitution can be changed or removed by amendment.  Nothing in this life is ever entirely sure and certain forever; but a law enacted by vote of the People or their representatives is somewhat harder to overturn than a court decision, especially if it reflects the popular will of the time.  And according to the polls, it seems that equal rights for gays and trans folk is indeed the popular will in America at this time, by about 2 to 1.  So let's be sure to nail this ruling down in law.

Meanwhile, again I say: Hooray! The gays are people too. We have a right to exist. And work and live and love, just like everybody else on this planet. Hooray!  Hooray!  God bless America!

And I have lived to see this day.


Bonus:  Former President Obama tweeted out this message today:

Supreme Court Rules, 7-2, for Colorado Baker

Embed from Getty Images

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Monday in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for two gay men, as the New York Times reports:

The court’s decision was narrow, and it left open the larger question of whether a business can discriminate against gay men and lesbians based on rights protected by the First Amendment.

The court passed on an opportunity to either bolster the right to same-sex marriage or explain how far the government can go in regulating businesses run on religious principles. Instead, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion turned on the argument that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which originally ruled against the baker, had been shown to be hostile to religion because of the remarks of one of its members.

At the same time, Justice Kennedy strongly reaffirmed protections for gay rights.

“The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts,” he wrote, “all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”

Read the full ruling here.

There was some confusion of thought among the learned justices, it seems. This dizzying schematic diagram shows their various opinions, dissents, and concurrences.

The gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, appeared on CNN yesterday:



Baker Phillips appeared on the Today show yesterday:




What I say:  First, the ruling applies only to this particular case, and turns on the technicality of some careless remarks by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when they were considering the baker's case.  So nothing is settled yet, and there is no reason to get excited one way or the other.

Second, as shown by the divisions among the justices themselves, the larger question is a thorny one, and it will be difficult to weigh the competing claims of religious belief and sexual orientation in order to come up with a rule of law that will satisfy everyone, one that all reasonable people of good will can in good conscience support.  As Justice Kennedy said in the majority opinion,

any decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying “no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages,” something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons.

I well recall in the legally segregated South of my childhood that every restaurant, cafe, motel, and ice cream stand had a prominent sign behind the cash register:  We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.  As a kid, I thought nothing of it; only much later, as an adult in the post-civil rights era, did I realize that the message was code for "We don't serve Negroes, so don't even ask."

Of course it would be ridiculous, not to say unconscionable, for any business today to deny service to anyone on account of race, or religion, or ethnicity, or for almost any other reason except being drunk and disorderly, or unable to pay.  And in fact, I would venture to say that most business owners of any kind are too eager to get some greenbacks in the till to worry about such things.  As long as your credit card is good and you don't break up the furniture, you're good to go in our consumer nation, right?

And the laws should rightly penalize any business that discriminates against a paying customer for no good reason:  whether you are selling lettuce or light bulbs, cars or candy, hamburgers, hotel rooms, or helicopter rides, your personal beliefs and opinions about the customer are irrelevant, and you treat everyone the same, selling the same goods or services to all comers (the exception being certain sales prohibited by law, such as selling booze to minors, etc.)  This is a settled principle in our modern society, and rightly so.

However, when the goods sold are not essentially the same for all customers, personal preferences notwithstanding (a shirt is a shirt is a shirt; a cup of coffee likewise, and so on, and so on), then perhaps there is room for discussion--and especially, it seems to me, when communication is involved, or artistic talent (for at bottom, Art is always Communication of some sort, whatever else it may be).  And if communication is involved, then the First Amendment, which we all revere, comes into play--and if that guarantees our freedom to speak our minds as we will, does it not also strongly imply the right not to speak what we do not will?  Forced speech is not free speech, is it?

Let us get down to cases:

• Suppose that you are a printer, and someone wants you to print up a thousand copies of a flyer for a KKK rally, something you find utterly abhorrent.  Should the law require you to fill that order?
• Or, say, you are a sign maker, and a very good one too, the old-fashioned kind who uses actual paint and brushes:  if someone comes into your shop and asks for a sign saying "Death to Jews," must you (a Gentile, as it happens, with no anti-Semitic feelings) paint it or face the penalties of law?
• Or again, if you are a seamstress specializing in custom-decorated clothing, and a biker brings you his leather jacket wanting "Fuck the Police" embroidered in great big letters on the back, should the law compel you to fulfill his request?

We could multiply examples ad infinitum here, but I think the point is clear enough:  if you are in the business of selling communication in one form or another, should the law protect your scruples, whether based on religious beliefs or not--or force you to violate your conscience, and ruin you if you fail to comply?  We are not talking here of great corporations selling housewares or hardware or trips to Tahiti, or the Moon--we are talking of individuals and small business owners whose livelihood is at stake.  People who are just trying to make a living and get by, like everyone else.  People who are, in the vast majority of cases, not bothering you or working against you, and not even thinking about you until you interfere with them.

Make no mistake: I sympathize strongly with Charlie and David. As my truckbuddies know from reading my story, I take a passionate, very personal interest in marriage equality, but not, I hope, an unreasonable one.  Today we have liberty, we have justice, we have the right to marry, something almost inconceivable forty years ago when I came out.  Let us rejoice in this magnificent turn of history, and not lose sight of the main thing:  our common humanity.  Let us not forget that we live in society with others, who also have a right to liberty and equal dignity under the law.  The search for a wise, humane balance of competing rights and liberties is and has been the eternal question of American democracy from the very beginning.

Frankly, your Head Trucker is inclined to side with the baker.  In the grand scheme of the universe, a cake is a silly little thing, a trivial thing, a ridiculous thing: here today and eaten tomorrow. If I were in the market for a wedding cake, I would certainly much rather take my business to someone who would bake it gladly and gratefully, rather than force another person to do it against his will and in violation of his conscience, which would do me and you and all of us no good at all, breeding resentment and even hatred. As history has shown times without number, in all ages and climes and countries, it is but one little step to go from oppressed to oppressor.

Of course, others may disagree with me, including some of my truckbuddies.  But we must all find a way to get along peaceably--as we always have, eventually, in our history, usually through the high art of compromise. How shall we decide such things, and where should the line be drawn?  And when I say "we," I mean straight and gay, religious and atheist, all the many colors of the human rainbow:  for every story has two sides, if not more, and every voice must have its say.  Is that not the first principle of democracy?

The Supreme Court has passed on the question, for now.  So come, let us reason together.

Love Wins Down Under

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December 7 will be remembered fondly by our Australian brothers and sisters as the day Parliament passed the Marriage Amendment Bill 2017, legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the southern continent -- the last large English-speaking nation to do so.  Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull delivered the bill in person the next morning (remember, they are twelve hours ahead of us) to Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, who promptly gave Royal Assent to the bill, making it the law of the land from December 9.  Same-sex marriages contracted by Australians in foreign countries will be recognized in law from that day forward.  Following the standard one-month waiting period, gay weddings on Australian soil can begin on January 9.



Only four members of the House of Commons voted against the bill; many conservative members simply abstained or absented themselves from the chamber.  The picture below dramatically shows the overwhelming majority of members sitting on the "yes" side, while the "no" side is practically deserted.  The galleries burst into applause and song when the Speaker declared the bill passed.

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The change in the law is a happy conclusion to the long struggle for marriage equality in Australia, which has its share of right-wing fanatics and zealots; you can read the history of the struggle at Wikipedia.

Australia is now the 26th nation to embrace same-sex marriage. The Pew Research Center gives a global summary of same-sex marriage laws here.

Australia Votes YES for Marriage Equality

With about 80 percent of the population casting postal ballots, 61.6 percent voted in favor of same-sex marriage.  A crowd in Sydney reacts to the news:




Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hopes to get Parliament to pass marriage equality by Christmas:




The New York Times reports:

Australians Say ‘Yes’ to Same-Sex Marriage, Clearing Path for Legalization

In Memoriam: Edith Windsor, 1929-2017

We have lost a darling lady and champion of the right to marry.  May she rest in peace.

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New York Times obituary here.

Richard Socarides in the New Yorker calls her "our Rosa Parks."

Former President Obama paid tribute to her on his Facebook page.

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Dishonored in Death

From the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger:

Picayune Funeral Home, in Picayune, is accused of refusing to cremate the remains of Robert "Bob" Huskey after learning he was married to a man at the time of his death, according to attorney Beth Littrell with Lambda Legal, a New York-based organization working for the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV/AIDS.

"After 52 years together and after having made pre-arrangements to ensure what was already a sad and tragic day would be as easy as possible, they were told that the funeral home was unwilling to honor their agreement and, as a result, their already sad day become immeasurably worse," Littrell said.

The little town of Picayune (pronounced picky-OON) is about 50 miles northeast of New Orleans.