West Hollywood Sheriff's deputy prepares for victory march to begin in WeHo Feb. 7, 2012 (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
The rain stopped just before about 200 people poured out onto Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Tuesday night, Feb. 7, for a march celebrating the victory of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declaring that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. The mainstream media was there (here’s a good example from KTLA) - but their job is to capture the essence of a story for a wide audience. It therefore falls to us – the LGBT press, technology-savvy folks with smart phones and citizen journalists to record for posterity what else happened – the nuances, the feelings, the history of our LGBT people.
The office of openly gay Los Angeles City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl posted this video of a rally in the Rotunda of LA City Hall Tuesday night with LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime ally who co-chaired the campaign against Prop 22 in 2000 and was front and center during the fight against Prop 8. After the jump, find photos from Latino Equality Alliance Co-Chair Ari Gutierrez of that event – followed by more photos and my reporting on the inspirational rally and march in West Hollywood.
More photos from the LA City Hall event celebrating the 9th Circuit ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional:
Openly gay LA City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl at 9th Circuit celebration (Photo by Debra Evans)
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at podium, former LA City Council President Eric Garcetti (l), City Controller Wendy Greuel, Councilmembers Bill Rosendahl and Paul Koretz (rt) Villaraigosa wants the court to lift the stay so he can start marrying same sex couples again. (Photo by Debra Evans)
Oscar winner Lance Black at podium and Emmy winner Rob Reiner (l) are on the board of the victorious Prop 8 challenge sponsors the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Courage Campaign/Prop8TrialTracker founder Rick Jacobs is in the back (Photo by Debra Evans)
Latino Equality Alliance Co-Chair Ari Guterrerz at the podium (Photo by Debra Evans)
Noel Alumit from API Equality at the podium (Photo by Debra Evans)
Milton Davis from the Jordan/Rustin Coalition (Photo by Debra Evans)
Rev. Susan Russell from California Faith for Equality (Photo by Debra Evans)
Meanwhile, in West Hollywood, a more grassroots celebration was held at the West Hollywood Library. The event, organized by the city of West Hollywood and Love Honor Cherish, which is considering going back to the ballot in 2012 to repeal Prop 8 if the stay isn’t lifted.
Openly gay West Hollywood Mayor John Duran emceed the rally, adding tidbits of history about which the younger activists might not be aware. He was particularly excited that WeHo was the first city in the nation to offer domestic partner benefits to all its citizens with a domestic partnership registry.
WeHo Mayor John Duran (l) and Love Honor Cherish Interim Executive Director Eric Harrison(r) with marriage supporters before the speeches (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
Duran said:
West Hollywood was the first to recognize domestic partnerships. You’ve got to think about where this came from. Why did we need domestic partnership laws? Because gay men with HIV and AIDS were dying in 1984 and were being denied hospital visitation, being denied the right to inheritance, being denied the right to their children. Because lesbians were losing their kids in custody battles. Because Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski were separated by outside families. Because of those issues – we decided to create a body of law to protect ourselves. Something called domestic partnership that was once considered radical is now the mainstream. It was the predecessor to marriage. So we are very happy about marriage. We are very happy that the federal appeals court struck down Proposition 8. God bless the city of West Hollywood and the LGBT community for setting this course 27 years ago. West Hollywood – you should be so proud! They call us vain and they call us shallow and they call us beautiful – and yes we are! But we also set the stage for this decision today.
Duran also noted what he called the “Prop 8 babies,” activists surprised by the passage of Prop 8:
You were born in November 2008 – people like [NoH8 creator] Adam Bouska and [his partner] Jeff Parshley and Matt Palazzolo and said, ‘Enough is enough. What happened? We just got discriminated against!’ Well, get used to it. It’s going to happen. But for those of you who came out during the Prop 8 debate – this is an important night for you. But it’s an important reminder: this is not a sprint. It is a marathon race. And once you chose in, you chose in for a lifetime of work. We’re all in this for a lifetime of work. This was a big step forward. There will be other steps forward; there will be other steps back. But ultimately at the end of our lives, it will all be different because we took a stand like we did here at the city of West Hollywood.
Duran then introduced Diane Abbitt, his former legal mentor, the first female co-chair of MECLA, the nation’s first LGBT political action committee, a co-founder of AIDS Project Los Angeles and a longtime lawyer and politico with the Human Rights Campaign Fund and Equality California.
Diane Abbitt and her fiance Bernadette Abbruzze (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
Abbitt recalled how she came out in 1973 and there were no organizations, other than what is now the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, co-founded by Morris Kight, Don Kilhefner, and Jon Platania, among a “small group of brave people.” Abbitt said:
Sometimes we say we stand on the backs of our heroes. But for me, I walk today with those heroes. So when I read the [9th Circuit] opinion I realized for me for the first time, a court spoke about us and said, ‘You are important. You count. And it’s wrong that you are not recognized for your relationships, that you are not afforded the same dignity, the same respect that anyone else who can get married is afforded today.’ Domestic partnerships, when we passed it in 2003, went into effect in 2004 [actually Jan 2005], we thought we had the world. And then came marriage. And people in our won community said, ‘Don’t rock the boat!’ But look what happens when you rock the boat!
And the only reason that worked was because of you – because of everybody who comes out and marches and walks and talks and tells their family. There’s only one reason we’re all here today – there’s only one reason this court sees us as being important, as equal, as worthy – because they see us for who we are. Not the stereotypes. Not the way those awful, bigoted people see us. But for who we are – and that’s because of all of us. You make this happen every time you step up. So, yes, thank you to all of our leaders, everyone who has walked the walk, talked the talk, who has been there. Thank you for those who lead the fight. But most of all, thank you to every single person who decided it was time to come out, to be seen and to be heard. And together we will win for forever.
NoH8 creators Jeff Parshley and Adam Bouska (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
Duran then introduced Adam Bouska, the NoH8 photographer whose desire to do something post-Prop 8 has become an international positive sensation. Bouska encouraged everyone to find their own way to help the movement:
Today’s victory is the latest contribution to the growing momentum to the positive forces for change we’ve seen over the last several months in states like Washington, Delaware, Hawaii and, of course, New York. And I can’t tell you how proud I am for California to be finally joining that list.
He noted that “while this is huge advancement for gay rights,” the most important point of the victory is that:
there is promise and that there is hope and that with enough perseverance and patience, we can achieve equal rights that we deserve across the board for everyone. Each of us needs to focus on what we can do as individuals to contribute to the movement in our won way. Everybody has their own way of speaking out and we have to celebrate those differences and encourage people to bring out their own personal talents to the table. I’m not a lobbyist and I wasn’t an activist in the years leading up to Proposition 8. But I knew how to take photos and I knew I wanted to speak out so taking NoH8 photos became my way of raising awareness. That’s the thing about activism – it speaks to everyone in different ways. And there are so many different ways you can get involved so don’t let anyone define your activism.
Lambda Legal's "brilliant" Jon Davidson (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
Duran introduced Lambda Legal’s Legal Director Jon Davidson as “one of the most brilliants minds we have” and recalled working with Davidson, who was then with the ACLU/SoCal on one of the first significant cases about HIV for a gay Orange County teacher named Vince Chalk. Davidson explained the importance of the 9th Circuit ruling – with numerous interruptions for applause:
The tide is not turning; the tide has turned. We have reached the tipping point – it’s tipped over. The right to marry the person you love is inevitable and equality for our community is inevitable. And this decision brings us many steps closer. It’s truly a thrilling day to be a Californian, to be a member of the wonderful LGBT community of California and of our country, and it’s especially thrilling to be a gay rights lawyer in California….
What the 9th circuit decided today was: “The people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them without a legitimate justification of a right as important as the right to marry.”
The court’s decision goes on to the most evil and to the most constitutionally flawed aspect of Proposition 8: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose and has no effect other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California and to officially reclassify their relationship and families as inferior to opposite sex couples and as the court explained, the Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort.
In its conclusion, the court explained: “The proposition’s only effect was to withdraw from gays and lesbians the right to employ the designation of marriage to describe their committed relationships and thus, to deprive them of the societal status that affords dignity to those relationships. Proposition 8 could not have been reasonably enacted to promote childrearing by biological parents, to encourage responsible procreation, to proceed with caution in social change, to protect for religious liberty or to control the education of children. Simply taking away the designation of marriage while leaving in place all the substantive rights and responsibilities of same sex partners did not do any of those things.”
In deciding the case more narrowly then whether we had a fundamental right to marry or whether all state needed to let same sex couples to marry, but at looking specifically to what had happened in California – the 9th Circuit today made its decision much less likely to be heard or overturned by the US Supreme Court. Now we don’t know that for sure, but it’s definitely less likely. And while that means we won’t immediately have marriage equality in all states, it does mean, I believe, that same sex couples in California – our nation’s most populous state – are likely to soon be able to marry again – perhaps as soon as later this year if the proponents do not ask for en banc review – that is, a review by a larger number of the 9th Circuit judges – or if that’s denied and the Supreme Court denies review, as I think there’s a good chance of because, really, all this did was make it, instead of six states and the District of Columbia where people can marry the love of their life, it’s now seven.
Lambda Legal's Jon Davidson explaining the 9th Circuit opinion (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
It’s incredibly gratifying how clearly the 9th Circuit understood the significance of marriage as it stated: “A rose by any other name may smell as sweet. But to a couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.” They said, ‘Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called ‘How to Register a Domestic Partner with a Millionaire,’ it would not have conveyed the same meaning as her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same sex couples is no different.” And we know about drama.
The court explained, ‘We do not celebrated when two people merge their bank accounts. We celebrate when a couple marries.’ The designation of marriage is the status we recognize. It is the principle manner in which the state attaches respect and dignity to the highest form of committed relationship and to the individuals who have entered it. And trying to take that away – to take that dignity away from us – is the dark heart of what Prop 8 improperly sought to do.
Davidson explained that the legal work fighting for the recognition of LGBT family relationships has been going on for decades, including the historic Lambda/ACLU marriage case in Hawaii in the early 1990s.
I want to salute and congratulate the plaintiffs in this case and their lawyers – Ted Olson and David Boies. And I’m also very proud of all of the legal talent that went into writing many, many friend of the court briefs. And I’m particularly proud that the legal theory on which the 9th Circuit ruled was the legal theory first advanced in a friend of the court brief submitted by Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the ACLU at the trial court and again at the 9th Circuit. And that the decision relies throughout on Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Romer v Evans – a case won by Lambda Legal and the ACLU.
Victories build on victories and just as Romer v Evans lead to this great decision, so it will lead, I believe, to victories in other states and on other issues. Ultimately today’s decision decides a critically important constitutional principle for our nation: that the people of a state may not strip a group of a right or benefit that they has previously enjoyed on terms of equality with all others in the state without having at least a legitimate government reason for doing so. That reason cannot simply be not liking us. It cannot simply be wanting to believe that we, or our relationships deserve to be treated with less dignity than those of straight people and theirs. That is what the barest concept of Equal Protection means. And I am ready to march and celebrate that that simply principle has been recognized by a federal appellate court – the first federal appellate court to ever reach such a decision in a marriage case – as meaning that Prop 8 is unquestionably unconstitutional. And the right for same sex couples to marry must soon be restored in California.
MCC Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
Some of the loudest and longest applause was for Metropolitan Community Church/LA Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas who noted that more than 6,000 people of faith and clergy came out to oppose Prop 8 – giving special recognition to Rabbi Denise Eger. He also slammed the antigay “Christians” who he suggested may be the cause of LGBT teen suicides.
Christianity and people of faith are not about denying the rights of lesbian and gay people. People of faith stand here today and look forward to marrying you tomorrow and we want you to know that you are just as loved by God as anybody else is!
With this tremendous victory today – let us also remember the folks who’ve taken their own lives in the last few years. Just yesterday, another young man took his life on suicide because he heard from the Religious Right that is neither religious nor right – he heard from them that he was not loved. We need to remember that today’s victory still means that we have much, much more work to do. There’s still immigration equality. There’s still healthcare for every single person in this country! The fight does not end until every single one of us has every single right that is given to every single person throughout this country and throughout this world and that’s what the LGBT community is modeling today.
Love Honor Cherish’s Harrison then rallied the troops and the march down Santa Monica Boulevard began.
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