For the last two years, I’ve predicted in this very spot on this very week that the next year would be a good one for the LGBT community. And they have been. So, before we go any further, let me once again, for the third year in a row, say that next year will be a good one for the LGBT community.
What I base that prediction on, I’ll leave to the end of this column, but let me first put this out there: Many people think of 1939 as the golden year of film — “Gone with the Wind,” “Wizard of Oz,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” etc. Well, 2012 and 2013 might similarly be considered turning points in the struggle for LGBT equality. We are so advanced that many of our youth have no idea of the struggle our seniors went through; they just expect equality. That is an incredible statement about the psyche we have created.
There is almost no area on the path to equality where we haven’t made gains. Granted, some items might be in stall mode, but they are not failures; rather, celebrations waiting to happen. And there should be no doubt that President Obama and his administration need to get a lion’s share of the credit. Here’s a fact that we don’t like to point out and, therefore, is controversial: One of the reasons we may have lost Proposition 8 in California was that our community did not work with the African-American and other minority communities. When Obama took on marriage equality and campaigned on it as part of his re-election, that started a conversation in the black community. The president further made it a point to support every statewide equality issue in the nation. Maryland and Illinois are equality states thanks to the president. He has stated repeatedly that the LGBT movement of today is the civil-rights movement of our time, mentioning the Stonewall Riots in his last inaugural address.
Yes, I feel strongly about how much the president has delivered to this community, and I’ll go a little further. He’s done it for the right reasons. It’s not political; for him, it’s personal. Mr. President, in my eyes you deserve to be called a gay activist. That is not a title I give out easily to non-LGBT people, but you, sir, have done more than many LGBT people themselves.
OK, let’s move on. We had a victory in the Supreme Court in 2013 and a hint that when one of the state marriage-ban cases gets to the Supreme Court, and they will, we have a chance for equality to be national. ENDA has passed the Senate, and the votes are most likely there in Congress, but Majority Leader John Boehner will not allow it to come up for a vote. This legislation might not be as glamorous as marriage but, hey, people are still being fired, people are still being tossed out of their apartments, people are still being denied service … millions of people!
We have proven we are a force. All it takes is a strategy and us not expecting instant gratification. The road to equality is not achieved overnight, but we are on that road and traveling above the speed limit. And we now have a lot more friends, family and allies on that road with us.
This is going to be a great year!
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].