The progress of the LGBT community during the last five years, which also coincides with the election of President Obama, is unprecedented. While the so-called Arab Spring was a series of civil protests in Arab countries that led to the ouster of many Arab leaders, our LGBT Spring is kinder, gentler and quite effective.
While I have not been a fan of media stunts like glitter bombing and chaining oneself to the White House fence, those stunts did assist in making those working the halls of power from the inside seem like a reasonable alternative when it was time to negotiate. Just like Malcolm X made Martin Luther King more powerful, radicals make moderate LGBT leaders more powerful.
During our LGBT Spring, it has been the work of both local and national organizations that have effectively moved same-sex marriage forward. When President Obama took office in January 2009, same-sex couples could get married in two states; Massachusetts and Connecticut. Since that time twelve other states have approved same-sex marriage, bringing the grand total to seventeen.
What is more amazing is that the LGBT community is poised to have four more states join the ranks; the amazing part is the names of those states: Utah, Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia – three Southern states and the Mormon capital of the world. Now that is something. By the time the marriage equality issue winds its way to the Supreme Court so many couples will be married there will only be one choice for the Court to make; equality.
While there is still work to do with marriage equality, it is time for the LGBT community to walk and chew gum at the same time. We need to get the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed in Congress, which gives LGBT people workplace protections. In the meantime, all those successful local marriage equality activists should be working in their statehouses to get ENDA legislation passed on a state by state basis. Then the ENDA domino will fall just like it did for the Defense of Marriage Act.
We are also experiencing an LGBT Spring with the Catholic Church and other religious communities. Just last week Pope Francis intimated that maybe it is time for the Catholic Church to consider civil unions. Pope Francis reputedly supported same-sex unions when he was a cardinal in Argentina. If the Pope can say it, isn’t it time for one of our mega-church pastors to follow suit – paging Rick Warren, Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes.
So as we spring forward, the LGBT Spring marches on. The LGBT community may just have full equality in the next five years. Talk about spring fever.
STAMPP CORBIN
PUBLISHER
San Diego LGBT Weekly
