A year ago yesterday, same-sex couples across the country gained the right to marry. Mary Bonauto, who argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Julie and Hilary Goodridge, whom she represented in the earlier case that won marriage equality in Massachusetts, spoke recently about what we’ve achieved—and how much further we have to go.
Bonauto, who in addition to winning a MacArthur “genius” fellowship is also the mother of twins, told the Boston Globe that the past year has been “the best of times and the worst of times.” She explained:
On the one hand we have marriage compliance, it’s awesome. It’s securing one to another and anchoring their families, and it ripples out to those who know them, friends and family, the community, because it shows us what people all have in common. It changes hearts and minds.
On the other side we have the people who oppose marriage and have rechanneled their efforts in these state bills. . . . they have channeled their efforts to segregate and discriminate against (GLBTQ) people through other means, through these bathroom laws with genital checks, through state laws that pre-empt local non-discrimination ordinances and basically invalidate them, to marriage refusal laws that go far beyond clergy, giving carte blanch [sic] permission to any individual who refuses to support gay marriage.
She also spoke of being “one justice movement” and creating “national standards of justice, no matter who you are or where you came from.” Go read what she has to say.
Over at The Atlantic, both Julie and Hilary Goodridge, lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts marriage equality case (but now divorced), and moms of a daughter, also spoke about the work we have left to do. Julie said:
“One of the things that’s been really interesting is realizing that so many people think that we’re done, that we’ve got all the rights we need now that we can marry one another. And of course, that’s not true. And it’s actually sort of distorting to have marriage in states where you can be kicked out of your home, where you can be refused service, where you might be ejected from the bathroom of your choice, and where you could lose your state job. It’s a tricky patchwork of protection depending on what state you live in.
She also pointed to the massacre in Orlando as indicating a need for continued efforts.
Hilary agreed, saying, “I never saw same-sex marriage as the be-all and end-all of anything.”
I’ll also mention a recent ruling in Tennessee, in which a judge said that “a woman who has married a woman has no legal right over a child she did not bear” in the case of a divorced two-mom couple. So while some media outlets, such as the Omaha World Herald, can say, “SCOTUS same-sex marriage ruling has allowed kids to have 2 legal parents, more stable homes and futures,” that’s only part of the story. We have to keep working to ensure a happy ending.
