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 (No Ratings Yet)
 As of this morning, for the first time in history, same-sex couples will line up outside the DC Superior Court to apply for marriage licenses. There are so many lessons to be learned from this battle, but I think it is important to note three that really stick out in my mind. First, unlike we have seen on a federal level, incremental change works if, and only if, you see true incremental steps towards equality year-after-year that build upon each other. It took a truly dedicated group of activists in DC to continuously add legal increments towards full marriage equality (and not just promises year after year) to create the opportunity to force full marriage equality. Second, if not for Republican-turned-Independent openly gay councilmember David Catania who was willing to be bold and stand up to an onslaught of criticism from other communities within DC and from our community and force the issue on principle we would not be where we are today. Third, if not for a group of young activists (who were called politically naïve and worse by the supposed “savvy” and “sophisticated” politicos) who created their own organization and refused to back down and bravely took on the entrenched powers in DC we would not be where we are today. I say all this because last year when Councilmember Catania and the the new activist organization DC For Marriage began to force the issue we heard a chorus of criticism that claimed that forcing the issue would alienate, Latinos, women, poor people, church-goers, the Catholic Church, middle-class workers, Congress, African-Americans, etc…..and that forcing the issue would set us back 20 or 30 years, but Catania and others refused to back down and took a principled stand. Sadly, people in our own community said that standing up for principle was a sure way to lose and that we needed to be realistic and pragmatic, others claimed that we needed marriage equality in at least half the states before forcing the issue or we would assuredly lose the battle here at home. We now have marriage equality in the District of Columbia—and last I checked, the sky has not fallen. Have some people been alienated? Sure. Are there discriminatory attitudes and beliefs more important than our families equality? Nope. Will there be a backlash? Sure. But, that is a by-product of exerting leadership and actually fighting for change and is bound to happen no matter what you do to minimize the impact. (And, it is important to note, that lots of work was done to build bridges but discriminatory beliefs and attitudes did not paralyze Catania and others.) Kudos to those in DC and around the country that are willing to show real leadership and are willing to fight and demand for our equality. The time has come.
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