What Gay Marriage Looked Like the '70s - JSTOR Daily

Contents:

• WHAT GAY MARRIAGE LOOKED LIKE THE ’70S
• GAY MARRIAGE
• AT THE DAWN OF GAY LIBERATN, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS A RADIL IA
• HISTORY OF GAY MARRIAGE
• TIMELE: GAY MARRIAGE IN LAW, POP CULTURE AND THE COURTS
• THE RISE OF GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: WHERE'S THE LK?
• GAY MARRIAGE TIMELE

WHAT GAY MARRIAGE LOOKED LIKE THE ’70S

Early Years: Same-Sex Marriage Bans In 1970, jt one year after the historic Stonewall Rts that galvanized the gay rights movement, law stunt Richard Baker and librarian Jam McConnell applied for a marriage license Gerald Nelson rejected their applitn bee they were a same-sex uple, and a trial urt upheld his cisn. ” This lg effectively blocked feral urts om lg on same-sex marriage for s, leavg the cisn solely the hands of stat, which alt blow after blow to those hopg to see gay marriage beg 1973, for stance, Maryland beme the first state to create a law that explicly f marriage as a unn between a man and woman, a belief held by many nservative relig groups.

In 1989, the San Francis Board of Supervisors passed an ordance that allowed homosexual upl and unmarried heterosexual upl to register for domtic partnerships, which granted hospal visatn rights and other years later, the District of Columbia siarly passed a new law that allowed same-sex upl to register as domtic partners. C., 1993, the hight urt Hawaii led that a ban on same-sex marriage may vlate that state nstutn’s Equal Protectn Clse—the first time a state urt has ever ched toward makg gay marriage Hawaii Supreme Court sent the se—brought by a gay male uple and two lbian upl who were nied marriage licens 1990—back for further review to the lower First Circu Court, which 1991 origally dismissed the the state tried to prove that there was “pellg state tert” jtifyg the ban, the se would be tied up ligatn for the next three Defense of Marriage Act Opponents of gay marriage, however, did not s on their hnch. That is, even if a state ma gay marriage legal, same-sex upl still wouldn’t be able to file e tax jotly, sponsor spo for immigratn benefs or receive spoal Social Secury payments, among many other act was a huge setback for the marriage equaly movement, but transient good news arose three months later: Hawaii Judge Kev S.

Phg for Change: Civil Unns The next saw a whirlwd of activy on the gay marriage ont, begng wh the year 2000 when Vermont beme the first state to legalize civil unns, a legal stat that provis most of the state-level benefs of years later, Massachetts beme the first state to legalize gay marriage when the Massachetts Supreme Court led that same-sex upl had the right to marry Goodridge v. Kansas and Texas were next 2005, and 2006 saw seven more stat passg Constutnal amendments agast gay towards the end of the , gay marriage beme legal var stat, cludg Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont (the first state to approve by legislative means) and New Hampshire.

GAY MARRIAGE

Domtic Partnerships Throughout the and the begng of the next, California equently ma headl for seawg on the gay marriage state was the first to pass a domtic partnership statute 1999, and legislators tried to pass a same-sex marriage bill 2005 and 2007.

For the first time the untry’s history, voters (rather than judg or legislators) Mae, Maryland, and Washgton approved Constutnal amendments permtg same-sex marriage marriage also beme a feral issue 2010, Massachetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, found Sectn 3 of DOMA—the part of the 1996 law that fed marriage as a unn between one man and one woman—to be unnstutnal.

AT THE DAWN OF GAY LIBERATN, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WAS A RADIL IA

Wdsor, nservative Jtice Anthony Kennedy sid wh Jtic Ruth Bar Gsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan favor of same-sex marriage rights, ultimately makg gay marriage legal across the natn June this time, was still outlawed only 13 stat, and more than 20 other untri had already legalized gay marriage, startg wh the Netherlands December 2000. Soris (whose son Richard turned out to be gay and served as Print Bill Clton’s first liaison to the LGBT muny) proclaimed that marriage for gay people uld e them “nsirable anxiety” bee most gay men ntually sought out multiple partners a narcissistic need to fd “replis of themselv. As the wore on, the batn of the failure of the early marriage lawsus, the emergence of different prri for a new battery of natnal gay rights anizatns, and the embrace of gay liberatn numero pockets of urban gay life had nspired to move same-sex marriage off the agenda entirely.

HISTORY OF GAY MARRIAGE

Six other stat which gay marriage bans had been overturned, Colorado, Kansas, North Carola, South Carola, Wt Virgia, and Wyomg, were also affected by the Supreme Court lg bee they were the jurisdictns of the lower urts that had overturned the gay marriage bans. But three te thgs about marriage don't necsarily have anythg to do wh one nnectn between the rise of gay marriage and the fall of straight marriage has been ma, most notably, by Tim lumnist Ross Douthat, who has asked liberals to acknowledge that the mastreamg of gay marriage jt might have led the an crease unwed moms and the cle of the stutn, general.

" This was an credibly rapid public today is roughly evenly spl over gay marriage, but when you break this down by age, you see the vast majory of ristance om olr Amerins, and support om the picture: Gay acceptance, which took off the 1990s, led to gay marriage acceptance, which advanced the last 20 years. Mark McCormack, the thor of The Declg Signifince of Homophobia, attributed to two factors that are sentially one factor, which is media exposure: (1) The rise openly gay performers and characters normalized homosexualy for young kids listeng to mic and watchg TV and movi; and (2) the Inter revealed to young people outsi of liberal urban bastns that beg gay simply wasn't that are there so many unwed (mostly lower-e) mothers?

TIMELE: GAY MARRIAGE IN LAW, POP CULTURE AND THE COURTS

As you n see this study by Betsey Stevenson and Jt Wolfers, marriag per pa have been clg sce the 1940 (except for a ltle boomer-fueled uptick the late-1960s):***Out-of-wedlock births and layed marriage were already unrway before the 1990s, when gay acceptance took off.

THE RISE OF GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: WHERE'S THE LK?

Scholars and the general public beme creasgly terted the issue durg the late 20th century, a perd when attus toward homosexualy and laws regulatg homosexual behavur were liberalized, particularly wtern Europe and the Uned Stat.The issue of same-sex marriage equently sparked emotnal and polil clash between supporters and opponents.

In other s, the cultural homogeney supported by the domant relign did not rult the applitn of doctre to the civic realm but may nohels have fostered a smoother seri of discsns among the cizenry: Belgium and Spa had legalized same-sex marriage, for stance, spe official opposn om their predomant relig stutn, the Roman Catholic Church.

Most of the world religns have at some pots their histori opposed same-sex marriage for one or more of the followg stated reasons: homosexual acts vlate natural law or dive tentns and are therefore immoral; passag sacred texts nmn homosexual acts; and relig tradn regniz only the marriage of one man and one woman as valid. In ntrast to the posns, self-intified “queer” theorists and activists sought to nstct the paired opposnal tegori mon discsns of blogy, genr, and sexualy (e.g., male-female, man-woman, gay-straight) and to replace the wh tegori or ntua that they believed better reflect the actual practic of humany.

GAY MARRIAGE TIMELE

Lynn uple, now their early 70s, spoke this month a rare terview the hoe they share here, nearly half a century after they joed their liv and earned a place the history of gay rights, helpg to make Mnota an early center of gay Baker said he was proud that the Supreme Court this year heard the very same nstutnal arguments of equal protectn and due procs that he had intified as a law stunt 2013, when the Mnota Legislature thorized same-sex marriage and a state senator announced, “Today, love ws, ” Mr. "Rabbis belongg to the biggt and most liberal branch of Judaism the Uned Stat have voted to regnise the partnerships of gay and lbian Central Conference of Amerin Rabbis, which is part of the Jewish Reform movement, has agreed to sanctn relig ceremoni for same-sex Print of the Conference, Rabbi Charl Kroloff, said that gay and lbian people served the regnn and rpect due to people created the image of God. "Before the lg [Supreme Court lg that laws makg gay sex a crime were unnstutnal], supporters the Hoe [US Hoe of Reprentativ] of a nstutnal amendment that would more formally rtrict marriage to the unn of a man and a woman were havg trouble attractg sponsors.

'In view of the substance and signifince of the fundamental nstutnal right to form a fay relatnship, ' he wrote, 'the California Constutn properly mt be terpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex upl as well as to oppose-sex upl. Proposn 8 was the most expensive proposn on any ballot the natn this year, wh more than $74 ln spent by both measure's most fervent proponents believed that nothg ls than the future of tradnal fai was at stake, while opponents believed that they were fightg for the fundamental right of gay people to be treated equally unr the years ago, Californians voted 61% to fe marriage as beg only between a man and a California Supreme Court overturned that measure, Proposn 22, s May 15 cisn legalizg same-sex marriage on the grounds that the state Constutn required equal treatment of gay and lbian upl.

Cuomo signed the measure after passed a Republin-ntrolled Senate on Friday night [June 24, 2011], raisg qutns as to whether the move reflects new momentum the gay rights said the law will grant same-sex upl equal rights to marry 'as well as hundreds of rights, benefs and protectns that are currently limed to married upl of the oppose sex.