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Freedom to Marry E-UpdateIssue # 16 | April 26, 2006 |
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 The WEDrock cd will be available in stores soon, but you can get it now with a donation!  Lambda Legal, National Black Justice Coalition, Asian Equality, National Latina/o Coalition for Justice, and Freedom to Marry have teamed up to spearhead a campaign featuring a diverse array of people of color depicting the wide-ranging support marriage equality has across the country. To view the banner ad and mini poster, visit Lambda Legal.
If you received this E-Update from a friend or family member, sign-up and pass it on!  Why Marriage Matters America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry
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A Note from Executive Director Evan WolfsonDear ${token1} —
In fact, as the article discussed, and as I explain in my book, Why Marriage Matters, this is in many ways the classic American pattern of civil rights advances — a "patchwork" period prior to national resolution. During such patchwork periods we see some states move toward equality faster, while others resist and even regress, stampeded by pressure groups and pandering politicians into adding additional layers of discrimination before – eventually – buyer’s remorse sets in and a national resolution in favor of inclusion and equality comes. In our struggle to end discrimination in marriage, the patchwork has begun, in part because it takes the first states some time to go first, and in part because of the ferocious anti-gay campaign underway state by state to make America a house divided. “Not all states march in sync,” said Pauline Maier, an American history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the New York Times article. “There’s always been a patch-quilt of state institutions… In many ways, states showed a better way of dealing with things and a more just society. In other states, they may have seemed backward for a time, but at least they were isolated.” I talk more about this pattern, and what needs to be done, in a speech, Marriage Equality and Lessons for the Scary Work of Winning, delivered to the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association’s 2004 “Lavender Law” conference, prior to the votes on that year's crop of anti-gay ballot measures. As Belluck, notes, "There have been other points in American history when state laws were radically different, historians say, citing slavery, and then the Jim Crow laws in the South." There are valuable lessons to be learned—and inspiration to be gleaned—as we thread the patchwork on our own arc to victory. “[T]he crystal ball,” Belluck concludes, “would indicate that some of the issues enthralling the states will eventually get sorted out nationally in federal legislation” or court decisions upholding our constitutional unity as a free and equal people. To ensure that when that national resolution comes, it is the right answer — and that it comes soon — we must work hard to get more states leading the way and build a critical mass of public opinion in favor of inclusion and fairness. That work is at hand now — in every state, for us.
Follow developments in the movement for marriage equality on our website, and in future issues of Freedom to Marry's bi-monthly E-Update. |
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"Why is that controversial? It seems to me that these are families, and they are entitled to be there just like any other family."
— Lois Kutchera, a preschool teacher on vacation from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with her husband and two children at this year's White House Easter Egg Roll |
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This past Sunday’s New York Times featured an article by Pam Belluck entitled, 
LANDSCAPE
Rolling Eggs, Making Change
