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History and Timeline of Marriage

This is not the first time our country has had this kind of conversation about marriage. Throughout our history, marriage has often been a battleground on which larger questions have been contested.

How did the marriage equality movement get started?

The movement for marriage equality has grown from the grassroots up. Many different factors have been involved in its growth, popularity, and in its successes so far, including:

1. Individual lesbian and gay couples yearning for full equality;
2. Private and public education on LGBT issues in general, and marriage equality in particular, as individuals and organizations speak to families, friends, neighbors, colleagues, fellow parishioners, public officials, and media outlets;
3. Legislative efforts to eradicate inequality, step by step;
4. Campaigns to defeat anti-gay/anti-marriage initiatives and referenda, using those attacks as an opportunity to educate;
5. Recourse to the courts to enforce and interpret laws and to uphold constitutional guarantees of freedom, equality, and fairness.

To understand the current landscape of marriage equality activism, it's helpful to know just a bit of its history.

1970s to 1990s: Widespread lesbian and gay rights efforts, ad hoc marriage activism

In the United States, individual lesbian and gay couples have attempted to gain marriage equality ad hoc since the 1970s, when isolated couples applied for marriage licenses and occasionally followed up with lawsuits. These early lawsuits were roundly rejected. The nascent but growing lesbian and gay movement (later, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, movement) was then focused on far more basic efforts, such as fighting antigay referenda, and attempting to secure freedom from firing, eviction, arrest, attack, loss of child custody, or being denied health care—all of which were possible simply for being gay or, later, for having HIV/AIDS.

Hawaii: Baehr v. Lewin sets off a national debate.

Then, in May 1993, a state supreme court responded seriously to an ad hoc marriage lawsuit—for the first time ever. Without the backing of any organized LGBT group, local or national, three same-sex couples sued Hawaii for marriage licenses. In Baehr v. Lewin (later Baehr v Miike), the Hawaii Supreme Court suggested that these couples had a point, and that such a denial might be sex discrimination. The Hawaii Supreme Court sent the case back down to the trial court for a new hearing. Soon thereafter, the Hawaii legislature passed the Reciprocal Beneficiaries statute, which made it easier for unmarried friends, partners, or family members to care for each other.

The 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court decision was only preliminary, and had not yet granted marriage rights. Nevertheless, it gave birth to the organized marriage equality movement—and, simultaneously, the organized anti-marriage movement. Anti-gay forces had long been arguing that any legal recognition of same-sex partnerships—even the ability to pass on a rent-controlled lease—was an attack on the institution of marriage. In response to Baehr, antigay forces introduced into state legislatures and the U.S. Congress a proposal called a "Defense of Marriage Act," limiting marriage to "one man and one woman." Because there had as yet been no serious public discussion of the issue, these measures almost always passed.

Marriage equality advocates began organizing in a wide variety of ways, as described in the sections that follow. However, that did not happen quickly enough in Hawaii. There, voters passed a constitutional amendment that gave the Hawaii legislature the power to amend its constitution to restrict marriage to one man and one woman. The Hawaii Supreme Court took the hint and let Baehr v. Miike die, without granting marriage rights.

Vermont: LGBT public education and advocacy leads to civil unions.

Baehr's real achievement was to inspire grassroots marriage equality activists across the United States. In Vermont, local activists organized as the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, and began educating friends, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens about the importance of marriage rights. After hundreds of public discussions, and after securing other important precedents on lesbian and gay rights both through the legislature and the courts, Vermont lawyers (backed by attorney Mary Bonauto of New England's GLAD, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) brought Baker v. Vermont, in which three same-sex couples sued for marriage rights.

In 1999, Vermont's Supreme Court ordered its legislature to pass a law that would eradicate legal inequality between same-sex and different-sex couples. In 2000, the legislature responded with the historic (if only partial) breakthrough of civil unions.

At first, the civil unions law had some strong opposition; some of its backers failed to be reelected to the state legislature. But the ground has shifted dramatically in the direction of equality in Vermont (pdf). In 2004, Democrats retook the Vermont House by a substantial margin. By 2006, Democratic, Progressive, and Democratic-leaning Independents made up 2/3 of Vermont's House and Senate. In 2007, a marriage equality bill was introduced into the state legislature .

From July 2007 to April 2008, the state conducted a Commission on Family Recognition and Protection with hearings throughout the state in order to review and evaluate Vermont's laws relating to the recognition and protection of same-sex couples and the families. The Commission published their report on April 21, 2008 and found that civil unions are indeed falling short of the promise of fairness and equality.  The legislature is expected to address the failing law in the 2009 legislative session.

Massachusetts: LGBT education and advocacy leads to full marriage rights.

In Massachusetts, years of public education and advocacy on LGBT issues had secured many important rights and freedoms, such as protections in education, employment, housing, and family life.

In 2001, building on these victories in public opinion and in law, seven same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses filed the lawsuit Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, represented by GLAD. In deciding Goodridge in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court opened full marriage rights to same-sex pairs in that state. The first day of full marriage rights was May 17, 2004—not coincidentally, the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down segregation.

Since the Goodridge decision (pdf), numerous polls have shown that anywhere from 57 percent to 62 percent of voters support marriage equality. During 2004, opponents of marriage equality in the Massachusetts legislature began the several-year process of amending the state's constitution to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, while enacting civil unions as a "compromise." However, in November 2004, anti-marriage legislators fared badly at the polls: one was defeated outright, and others were only narrowly reelected. By contrast, Massachusetts legislators who supported marriage equality won by large margins (pdf).

In June 2007, the Massachusetts Legislature defeated the discriminatory, anti-gay, anti-marriage Constitutional amendment. The final 151 to 45 vote was a strong legislative victory for marriage equality.

California: Decades of LGBT education, advocacy, and legislative progress with marriage on the horizon.

In California, public education, advocacy, political activism, and progress on LGBT issues have been underway for decades, enacted by municipal bodies and state legislatures, and enforced by the courts.

In 1999, the state legislature created a statewide domestic partnership registry, enabling same-sex couples to register their partnership. At the time, registering had very few legal consequences. However, each year since, the legislature has added new legal meaning to that status.

In 2000, despite growing statewide support for equality, voters passed an initiative amending state law to declare that California would not recognize other states' same-sex marriages.

In February 2004, San Francisco's mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the city's public offices to begin marrying same-sex couples. The California Supreme Court later invalidated those marriages as unauthorized by state law. A case was filed on behalf of 15 couples, Equality California, and Our Family Coalition, called In re: Marriage Cases, which challenged California's restrictions on marriage.

In 2005, California's Legislature became the first in the U.S. to pass a bill ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, but Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the legislation. The bill passed again in 2007, gaining even more support from legislators, but again was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

In order to keep moving towards marriage in California, a public education campaign, Let California Ring, was launched in September 2007 to open hearts and minds about the freedom to marry and the respect, support, protections, and responsibilities that come with marriage.

On May 15, 2008 the California Supreme Court ruled in In Re: Marriage Cases to uphold the freedom to marry. As of June 16, 2008 at 5pm, same-sex couples can receive marriage licenses from the state of California.

At the same time, an anti-marriage initiative which qualified for the November 2008 ballot is proposing to write marriage discrimination into the state constitution and take away equality and fairness in California. Learn how to protect marriage in California.

Progress toward the freedom to marry throughout the United States

Since civil unions were created in Vermont in 2000, various other states now offer broad protections short of marriage including civil unions in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Hampshire and broad domestic partnerships in California and Oregon. Smaller packages of protections for same-sex couples are available in Maine, Hawaii, Washington, and the District of Columbia. All of these states continue to work toward marriage.

While two states (Massachusetts and California) uphold the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, there are four states — Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, and New York — that officially pledge non-discrimination against marriages between same-sex couples.

1. Because New Mexico’s laws do not prohibit marriage between same-sex couples, there is no impediment to New Mexico same-sex couples marrying in Massachusetts or California and having their marriage honored in New Mexico.  While Massachusett’s government directed that licenses could be given to New Mexico couples, the New Mexico state government has not taken action to ensure they will be honored.

In 2007, a record number of marriage equality bills (11) were introduced, and courts in states such as Iowa and Connecticut continued to hear cases brought by couples challenging their unfair exclusion from marriage.