We got a letter to the editor (printed below) that made the point that my recent columns “have brought together the history of the fight against intolerance and this year’s acknowledgement of acceptance by the U.S. Supreme Court, among others.”
Well, that is one way of looking at those columns, but I’d like to believe that they give us a sense of our own community’s history, and apply it to how we got where we are and what tools we used under what circumstances.
My reason for this is that while we have had some major successes this year, those were only battles to be won. We still need to win the war on discrimination on all levels.
And when you think we are winning, let’s be real and look at the real scope of things. Our big win, marriage in the Supreme Court, was so weakly written that it will take at least another case or two to really define marriage equality. And at present, only about 30 percent of LGBT Americans can marry in their state and get marriage benefits. And that number is similar to the most basic of discrimination protections in employment, housing and public accommodations. Currently, 28 states still allow such discrimination against LGBT people.
So what I hope these columns do is bring us pride in where we were, how far we’ve come and the quick pace at which we’ve gotten there, as well as somehow give a road map to where we need to go.
There’s an old slogan that says, “For those who do not know their history, beware it might repeat itself.”
So in another sense, this column continues to suggest that we keep up the fight and refresh ourselves before we head into the next round.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].