This morning, for the umpteenth time, we sat at the edge of our seats glued to our twin laptops—one tuned to the New York Senate’s live debate over marriage equality; the other tuned to TweetDeck, where our community (as always) banded together in solidarity and anticipation of a vote on our personal lives. For the umpteenth time, we held our breath and tried to fend off that all-too-familiar nausea as the American ideal of equality was squashed by political cowardice and misguided religious bias in a vote of 38-24.
Suffice it to say, the vote on the floor on the New York Senate is a major bummer. It is a blow to the marriage equality movement and a pie in the face of American exceptionalism. But it’s temporary. We all know—even NOM’s head bigot Maggie Gallagher knows—that equality will win the war. But make no mistake about it, the fight continues.
As good gays, we believe there is a rainbow at the edge of this ugly storm. Today, that rainbow is composed of many senators of color—including Malcolm Smith, Pedro Espada and Ruth Hassell-Thompson among others—who poignantly drew on their own personal experiences with discrimination to find commonality with LGBT people. These Latino and African American senators are leaders of communities that often do not stand shoulder to shoulder with us on LGBT rights, and many of them voted for equality in spite of opposing views among their families and constituents. We are so very very grateful for the leadership of these senators. We hope they will continue to reach out to the voters, parents and siblings who oppose them in their support for equality. We hope they will continue the dialogue about why equality is crucial, not just for LGBT people but for every person everywhere.
But until the day comes when all Americans have equal rights, the question remains “What do we do now?” For these two marriage equality advocates, we made a promise to each other to support the legislators and candidates—like Senator Tom Duane in New York—who are proven to have the courage to stand up for the values that our country is founded on. This means allocating our time and donations to local, grassroots allies. This means no more dollars for the DNC. President Obama, are you listening? We have the audacity to hope so.
