2014 in review: And the walls came tumbling down

I do, again and again and again

2014 will be remembered as the tipping point for marriage equality. The marriage equality tsunami began with the freedom to marry being granted in Oklahoma. A harbinger of the year to come, the Oklahoma ruling was put on hold pending a ruling from the 10th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. Then the walls came tumbling down.

Federal courts across the land ruled in favor of marriage equality forcing rulings from multiple circuits in the federal appeals courts. After Oklahoma, came Kentucky, Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Alaska, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, Missouri and South Carolina.

The momentum was clearly with equality but the forces against the freedom to marry were given a small glimmer of hope when the 6th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals overturned lower court rulings and upheld marriage discrimination in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. The 6th Circuit ruling has teed up the fight in the U.S. Supreme Court that is expected to be argued in the 2015 session.

That means we can expect that 2015 will also be defined by marriage equality.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves; after all there is so much to talk about from the last year …

Transgender rights to the fore

You could not turn on your TV or tablet without hearing something about the transgender community in 2014. Both triumph and tragedy marked the year that will be remembered as a turning point in transgender acceptance.

President Obama issued an Executive Order prohibiting discrimination based upon gender identity by federal contractors. Not to be outdone by himself, Obama later issued a separate executive order granting federal employment protections based upon sexual orientation and gender identity. Federal civil rights protections were also extended to transgender students under Title IX law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities. The transgender community was able to achieve in a much shorter period the same rights granted that were based upon sexual orientation, quite an accomplishment.

While 2014 was a banner year for the transgender community nationally, it was tempered by the continued murders of transgender women because of their gender identity, as well as skirmishes in the entertainment industry.

In the end, it was a great year for the transgender community; they even got a newly minted icon in TV star Laverne Cox, who was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Cracking the gridiron ceiling

The final frontier of LGBT equality was finally breached with the entrance of NFL hopeful Michael Sam into the professional football draft. Sam was unsuccessful in his NFL bid when he did not make a team, but he was drafted and cracked the gridiron ceiling.

Sam was joined in letting the sports world know that LGBT people are everywhere by Olympic swimming legend Ian Thorpe, strongman champion Rob Kearney, WWE veteran Pat Patterson, pro-runner Matt Llano, elite college athletes Derrick Gordon and Chip Sarafin, as well as lesser known professional athletes in other sports like rowing and soccer.

The Sochi Olympics also provided an opportunity for LGBT athletes to step forward. While the Games were under the microscope due to Russia’s intolerance of the LGBT community, several Olympic athletes decided to come out in protest. Sponsors publicly denounced Russia’s anti-LGBT laws, Obama named gay athlete Brian Boitano as part of the American Olympic Federation, and some political dignitaries, including Obama, skipped the events all together. Score.

Putting our stamp on the world

In our Internet connected world where everything travels at the speed of light, who would have thought that the LGBT community would be interested in something as antiquated as the postage stamp? The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp honoring gay political icon Harvey Milk and the country of Finland issued stamps with the erotic work of Tom of Finland. The world is definitely stamping out inequality.

Pope pops off

Pope Francis continued his quest to be the most liberal and LGBT affirming Pope in history. First, Francis hinted at the benefits of civil unions in terms of economic and financial health, and then came a small shift in tone concerning the LGBT community. In an extraordinary meeting in Rome of the Catholic Church leadership, a preliminary report was issued that said homosexuals “need to be welcomed and accompanied with patience and delicacy” and that “[homosexuals] have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community.”

The interpretation of the statement report was the subject of much debate on both sides of the issue. The final report was issued with much more muted language stating that discrimination against LGBT people should be avoided. In the end, for the LGBT community it was a small light in the darkness.

Entertainingly out & proud

No one would argue that Neil Patrick Harris isn’t the most successful out gay man in the history of entertainment. Yet, 2014 was his banner year; Tony win, star turn in Gone Girl, cover of Rolling Stone, appears in new London Fog ads with his husband, publishes autobiography, set to host the Oscars in 2015. What’s next Sexiest Man Alive?

There were other non-Harris entertainment milestones in 2014:

• Laverne Cox emerges as transgender TV star, spokesperson and icon

• Oscars for Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto for playing LGBT people in Dallas Buyers Club

• Same Love marriages at the Grammys

• Drag Queen Conchita Wurst wins Eurovision Song Contest

• Smithsonian Museum debuts LGBT history project

• LGBT people featured in shows all over TV

• Same-sex couples in commercials (Honey Maid, Cheerios, Chevrolet and Hotwire)

Scandalous gay sex

It is impossible to not mention the steamy gay sex scenes on the hit shows Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Producer/Director Shonda Rhimes, who is the creator of both shows, responded to a fan who was alarmed by the scenes on Twitter:

Shonda has said she is going to do for the LGBT community what Norman Lear did for the African American community with shows like The Jeffersons in the ‘70s. We say “you go girl!”

To PrEP or not to PrEP, that is the question

The use of Truvada, a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV was the subject of a hot debate in 2014. While Truvada has been available since 2004, it was determined that taking the drug daily before exposure to HIV decreased your likelihood of contracting the disease by 99 percent. In essence, taking the pill was as effective as using a condom. Some argued that Truvada would lead to an increase in unprotected sex and could lead to a resistant strain of HIV.

The debate rages on but the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control issued recommendations that Truvada use was good for HIV-negative gay men in conjunction with other preventative measures.

Not so fast, Firefox

Mozilla, parent of the search tool Firefox, promoted Brendan Eich from chief technology officer to CEO. Eich had been a contributor to the Prop. 8 campaign. Developers of Mozilla’s Firefox browser, the LGBT community, Mozilla employees and Firefox users took to blogs and Twitter to express outrage over Eich’s appointment. After a tepid apology, Eich stepped down.

The message? Vocal intolerance toward the LGBT community by a CEO of a publicly traded or prominent company is not going to be tolerated by the community at large. Eich got the message, as did former San Diego hotelier and owner of the Union Tribune, Doug Manchester, when he made contributions to the Prop. 8 campaign.

The world is still a dangerous place

While LGBT rights are progressing in many places across the globe, there are still large parts of the world where being a member of the LGBT community is life threatening.

There are at least 79 countries where it is illegal to be LGBT, including Egypt, India, Singapore, Jamaica, Brunei, Uganda and Kyrgyzstan. Even in countries without formal laws making being LGBT illegal, including the United States, there are significant discriminatory laws against the LGBT community. These laws create a hostile environment that can lead to hate crimes against LGBT people.

Most troubling? Losing the fight in the United States, organizations like the National Organization for Marriage are exporting their discriminatory views from the U.S. to the developing world.

Please be careful when you travel and check the status of LGBT laws in countries you plan to visit.

Things most hated from 2014

While the country moves forward toward LGBT equality on all fronts, there are always things that happen that remind us that there is still a long road ahead.

• Duck Dynasty star’s anti-LGBT rants

• RuPaul and the T-word

• Actor Jonah Hill calling a photographer the F-word

• Talk show host Jenny McCarthy insulting the transgender community

• Ellen making a joke about Facebook drag names

• Fatal plane crash with important HIV activists and specialists aboard

• Anti-LGBT political donations and rhetoric by major corporation executives

• Joan Rivers making a questionable joke about the transgender community

• Talk show host Wendy Williams’ poor interview of a transgender athlete

• NFL former coach Tony Dungy implying a gay player would be a “distraction”

• Football great Deion Sanders saying being gay “could be” a choice

• Bachelor Juan Pablo’s anti-gay comments concerning a potential gay bachelor

• Talk show host Sherri Shepherd not agreeing with the “(homosexual) lifestyle”

Local 2014 LGBT milestones

2014 also provided some important milestones and memories right here in San Diego.

• Assembly member Toni Atkins serves as interim governor

• Council President Todd Gloria serves as interim mayor

• Wells Fargo debuts LGBT mural in its Hillcrest location

• Carl DeMaio loses his congressional bid

• San Diego Pride Turns 40

• Harvey Milk’s American Diner shutters

• LGBT Weekly wins nine awards from the San Diego Press Club

• Local house flippers win Rowhouse Showdown reality show on FYI

• Gay wedding in Coronado ruined by hecklers; Coronado residents host “redo” for gay wedding grooms

• San Diego recognized nationally as a city for LGBT activism

Other 2014 national LGBT milestones

• Apple CEO Tim Cook comes out

• First royal comes out; Crown Prince Manvendra of India

• Republican LGBT activist group GoProud shuts down

• Gay Republican candidates lose in spite of Republican election wave