It is hard to believe that ten years have gone by since the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges, securing nationwide marriage equality for our community.
NCLR represented same-sex couples from Tennessee in that case, along with a stellar legal team. Tennessee was just the final chapter in the fight for marriage. Believe it or not, Tennessee was one of TEN NCLR marriage cases, including cases in California, New Mexico, Alabama, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Starting with California in 2004, NCLR attorneys represented dozens of same-sex couples in state and federal courts in virtually every part of this country. I had the honor of arguing marriage equality before the California Supreme Court in 2008 and then returning just a few months later to go head-to-head with Ken Starr over the constitutionality of Prop 8. As a transgender man, I was able to marry my wife Robin in California in 2001, and, after that, not a day went by that I did not wake up yearning to achieve that same freedom for our entire community.
Over the last decade, marriage equality has transformed the position of LGBTQ people in our society—providing a level of security and acceptance we could only dream of in the past. When the Obergefell decision came out, thousands of families breathed a sigh of relief. Justice Kennedy’s opinion acknowledged our common humanity. The Supreme Court got it right.
Last week, though, the Supreme Court got it wrong.
It upheld Tennessee’s ban on medical care for transgender youth, leaving families in Tennessee and other states with similar bans unprotected, with no way to obtain essential medical care for their children. Today, LGBTQ people are facing the most intense, comprehensive, coordinated, and vicious series of attacks we have been up against in my more than 30 years of LGBTQ civil rights practice, including threats to roll back marriage equality.
Recently, powerful forces in the mainstream media have tried to drive a wedge between our community—seeking to engender conflict and division. But these tactics to divide and weaken us have never worked, and they will not work now.
The truth, as the great majority of LGBTQ people know, is that we are bound together by ties too strong to break.
Our lives, our histories, our identities, and our families are too deeply connected. Our fates are too closely linked. Our enemies are one and the same. And our dedication to one another is too strong.
Our community is built on resilience and connection—both in times of victory and in times of heartbreaking setbacks, like the recent loss at the US Supreme Court.
For every isolated voice seeking to divide, there are thousands of us standing together. On this tenth-year anniversary of the freedom to marry, we will celebrate with those who celebrate, and weep with those who weep. Today and in the hard days to come, let us recognize the very real and lasting victories we have achieved. And let us renew our commitment to stand together and leave no one—not a single one of us—behind.
Shannon Minter, Esq.
Vice President of Legal
National Center for LGBTQ Rights
