Exactly 13 years ago today, same-sex couples gained the right to marry in a U.S. state for the first time. In the U.K., on the same day, the government repealed Section 28, which had prevented local authorities from “promoting homosexuality.” Three years to the day later, my spouse and I made our own marriage legal.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health on November 18, 2003. Marriages began the next May, with Chief Justice Margaret Marshall’s poetic words becoming a surprise hit at many a ceremony—including, I admit, mine and Helen’s. Our choosing of the date was purely coincidental, driven by our move to the state, the need to have me on her health insurance, and family availability—but I’ve always liked that it happened to be symbolic on another level.
The U.K.’s Section 28, which since 1988 had forbidden “the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship,” was an artifact of fear during the 1980s AIDS crisis and the response of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party. It cast a pall over the LGBTQ community when I arrived there in the fall of 1988 for two years of study and didn’t seem to be going anywhere when I left in 1990. Clearly, LGBTQ activists made a difference between then and 2003.
2003, the cusp of a new era for LGBTQ equality, was also the year my son was born. Today, then, I am thinking about the 10 years of legality my spouse and I are celebrating (and our almost 24 years together in total), our son’s future, and the future of us all under a homophobic and racist federal administration.
Sometimes, however, we can learn to move forward by looking back. Let us take heart at the previous successes of LGBTQ activists and remember the challenges our community has overcome. Celebrate today as a minor LGBTQ festival. Not as important as Pride Month or LGBTQ History Month, perhaps, but a day to remember nonetheless. We may have obstacles ahead, but we can also rejoice in our progress.
