The year in queer

Whew. From California to Connecticut, from Lawrence King to Katherine Patrick, from Mitt Romney's downfall to Del Martin's death, it's been a roller coaster ride of a year for LGBT people near and far. Here's our annual round-up of the year's more memorable moments.

January: Civil unions come to New Hampshire

Bundled against the freezing temperatures about three dozen same-sex couples said "I do" as Granite Staters gay and straight celebrated the implementation of the state's civil union law in front of the New Hampshire State House minutes after the start of the New Year.
In the glare of a TV camera's light and with two reporters hovering around them, state Rep. Gail Morrison and her partner of 26 years, Pauline Chabot, were joined in a civil union by the Rev. Tess Baumberger of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Franklin, the church that Morrison and Chabot attend together. "Our years together have been filled with love for each other and our families," Morrison told Chabot, whose face was wet with tears, during their exchange of vows. "We hav e experienced ... the beauty of the life around us and we've experienced pain and hardship and survived the stronger together. I promise to cherish you through our days together and always."
New Hampshire was the first state to legislate civil unions without a lawsuit to force the issue.

Quote of the month
"The Mass. chapter of TAVA didn't break ties with MTPC over the work they have done and will continue to do in Massachusetts. We broke ties with them for getting in bed with the enemy and being paid to sleep with them."
-- Michael West, chair of the Massachusetts chapter of the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), announcing that the organization was severing ties with Mass. Transgender Political Coalition over MTPC's acceptance of a grant from the Human Rights Campaign.

February: 'Bigotry and hatred loaded the gun'

Hollywood - Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, teared up during a Feb. 15 news conference at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center as she talked about the "terrible tragedy" of the shooting death of 15-year-old Lawrence King, an openly gay youth who wore feminine clothing, by his 14-year-old classmate in Ventura County.

"This event is a terrible tragedy, but it's even more so because Larry King and Brandon [McInerney, the alleged shooter] were still children," said Jean.

"Lawrence suffered the ultimate act of violence. He is dead and Brandon is alive. In that very basic way their situations cannot be compared. But there is a bigger picture here. Both of these children were victims. Victims of a society that continues to teach that it is permissible to exclude, revile and even hate gay people and anyone who does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes. Brandon pulled the trigger, but bigotry and hatred loaded the gun," Jean said.

Quote of the month
"I can't stop smiling. Has there ever been anybody that's been so thoroughly hated by both sides of the aisle? He's done."
-- Gary Daffin, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, reveling in Mitt Romney's poor showing on Super Tuesday. Romney bowed out of the presidential race days later.

March: Heavy hitters go to bat for transgender civil rights bill

A marathon March 4 State House hearing on House Bill 1722, which would add gender identity and expression to the state's civil rights laws, revealed a huge amount of support for passing the law from state legislators, Gov. Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley and Congressman Barney Frank. The historic hearing -- the first on Beacon Hill to address transgender issues -- attracted hundreds of people.

Other political heavyweights supporting the bill were Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney, Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins.

The committee asked few questions during the hearing. The most substantive exchange took place during the testimony of a panel of attorneys supporting the legislation. Committee co-chair Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty (D-Chelsea) told the panel that several people had privately expressed their concerns to him about the legislation, and he wanted the attorneys to address those concerns.

He asked what recourse a woman would have if she was changing her child's diaper in a public restroom and "an individual enters into the women's bathroom, does not identify him or herself in any capacity, but it is, we'll say for the hypothetical, observable by the woman with the child that this is an individual that in her mind does not appear to be a woman."

GLAD attorney Jennifer Levi, one of the drafters of the legislation, said that if the individual entering the bathroom identifies as female, the proposed law would give her the right to use the restroom, regardless of whether other occupants believe that she is female.

"What this law does is ensure that individuals can safely and comfortably use the restroom that is consistent with their gender identity or expression. Everybody has to use bathrooms, and what this law will do is ensure that everyone can use those [bathrooms] with dignity and safety," said Levi. "It is true that there may be some people who think that they can perceive or accurately identify what another person's gender identity or expression is. That is not the case. It's not the case that you ever know who it is that's in the restroom with you."

She added that H.B. 1722 does not provide legal protections to people who enter a public bathroom to commit a crime.

The bill died without further action at the close of the legislative session in July.

Quote of the month
"In Massachusetts, just last spring Senator Kerry worked with Gov. Patrick and progressive legislators to help defeat a draconian and discriminatory constitutional amendment that would have banned same sex marriage in Massachusetts. Sen. Kerry believes that in Massachusetts, gay marriage is a matter of settled law and there is no reason to change the law."
-- Brigid O'Rourke, a spokeswoman for Sen. John Kerry, revealing Kerry's softening of his longstanding opposition to marriage equality.

April: Gays work it for Hillary

In the midst of one of the most hard-fought primary battles in modern presidential politics, LGBT supporters of Hillary Clinton headed to Pennsylvania to help their candidate pull out a victory. Leading the troops was Bostonian Mark Walsh, who went door to door in a rough-around-the-edges development in northeast Philly, where the chief difference among all the look-a-like duplexes was how badly they were in need of paint. Here, a young man in a shiny Phillies basketball jersey washed his Mustang in the driveway, a young girl rode her bike up the middle of the street with no hands and no helmet, and gnomes were the most common lawn and bush ornament. Nearly every house had a well-worn American flag hanging from some part of its pale brick-stone-aluminum facade, and behind nearly every metal-grated door could be heard some large guard-like bark.

So, what was Hillary Clinton's national LGBT outreach director doing here?

Walsh was doing what he had just asked a busload of LGBT people from New York City to do that afternoon: go door-to-door to encourage a vote for Clinton during Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.

The Hillary for President campaign hired Walsh, who has long been active in local LGBT and Democratic politics, to do LGBT outreach barely a month after the senator announced her bid for the Democratic nomination. He and his partner in life and business, Bryan Rafanelli, became supporters in 1999, when she ran for the U.S. Senate seat from New York.

Quote of the month
"It's not only translating but it's making sure you're using the right tone, making sure the brand is conveyed in the language. It's a constant challenge. And then especially when you're dealing with sexual terms and gay innuendo, how do you say, 'cock and ball torture,' in Portuguese?"
-- Phil Henricks, Manhunt.net's director of marketing, on the challenges of taking the gay hook-up site international.

May: California Supreme Court: let the gays marry!

In a 4 to 3 opinion, the California Supreme Court ruled on May 15 that prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages violates the state constitutional rights of gay people. Gay celebs including George Takei, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia deRossi announced wedding plans almost immediately.

And one signal of their importance was the reaction of gay legal advocates, who, anxious to reassure heterosexual America that there is no threat to their domination of the species, are usually cautious in their assessments of most legal victories. But with the California Supreme Court's In Re: Marriage Cases, they were unabashedly blunt and joyful.

"This was a prize of inestimable value," said Matt Coles, executive director of the ACLU's National Gay and Lesbian Rights Project. He said, "Marriage in California will transform the discussion of marriage nationwide."

Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney in the Massachusetts Goodridge case, said the California decision "marks a moment in history that will be remembered more like the crest of a wave than simply another ripple."

It was also predicted that the decision would elicit unprecedented reaction from marriage equality opponents. Geoff Kors, head of the statewide gay group Equality California, predicted the November ballot battle would be "the largest, most expensive and most hard fought LGBT ballot measure in the history of the country." Indeed.

Quote of the month
"I'd like to think the majority of Californians are fair minded. And with these marriages happening, there's another issue added on. Those that want to rescind the Supreme Court's ruling are going to be taking away something that people have. Before, that was not so. They would be doing a destructive thing, taking marriage away from families. So I think that people like Ellen DeGeneres and myself announcing that we're going to get married, this is just the beginning."
-- Actor George Takei, expressing optimism that the effort to overturn California's marriage equality decision at the ballot box would fail.

June: With love and pride, Governor Deval Patrick's daughter comes out

On June 14, 2007, the day that lawmakers finally voted down an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution, Katherine Patrick stood outside the State House and looked up at her father. Gov. Deval Patrick was standing on the front steps, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of hundreds that mobbed the brick sidewalk and spilled halfway across Beacon Street. As they cheered the defeat of the amendment - an effort led by the governor, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Sal DiMasi - Katherine had never before felt more proud of her father.

"Because, of course, he didn't know that I was gay then," the 18-year-old recalls. "So, for someone so publicly to fight for something that doesn't even affect him was just like, 'That's my dad,' you know?" she says with a laugh. "That's all I could think. I was very, very proud to be part of this family, and this state in general."

Quote of the month
"Rep. Sciortino, after having his hysterical claim of a Watergate-style theft of his nomination signatures repudiated by three separate independent judges, now seeks a desperate attempt to cripple my candidacy by challenging my certified signatures."
-- Somerville Alderman Bob Trane, lashing out at openly gay state Rep. Carl Sciortino, his opponent in the 34th Middlesex House district race, for challenging the validity of his nomination signatures. Sciortino had previously sought relief through the courts when he failed to turn in the proper number of nomination signatures for himself.

July: Viva Mass. Vegas!

With two strokes of the pen Gov. Deval Patrick opened the borders of the Commonwealth to out-of-state same-sex couples hoping to marry and granted equal Medicaid benefits to married same-sex couples in Massachusetts. Patrick signed the two major pieces of LGBT-rights legislation, a bill repealing the so-called 1913 law and the MassHealth Equality bill, at a press conference July 31 in front of the Grand Staircase in the State House, flanked by House Speaker Sal DiMasi, state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, dozens of lawmakers, and a crowd of LGBT advocates. Lawmakers in the House and Senate pushed both pieces of legislation through both chambers in the last days of the legislative session, which ended the day of the bill signing.

"I am so pleased to be standing with my colleagues in government here with the leadership of the Speaker and the Senate President, who is today represented by the extraordinary Dianne Wilkerson, to be with you all to sign two bills that confirm a simple truth, and that is that in Massachusetts equal means equal," Patrick said at the start of the signing ceremony, prompting cheers and loud applause from the crowd.

Both pieces of legislation won final approval from the legislature two days before the signing ceremony.

Quote of the month
"It's that T side [in LGBT] that we have not been able to fully accommodate within our program. That is shown [by the fact] that in our registration, transgender is not one of the options we provide, and we don't provide that as such. ... That identity is not an identity we have an ability to support."
-- Brian Brown, chief technical officer for TangoWire, a gay-owned and operated online dating company, explaining why a transgender man was kicked off the company's bisexual dating portal.

August: DNC a GOP (Gay Old Party)

Denver, Colorado turned out to be one of the busiest Democratic National Conventions in terms of LGBT events. At their several events during the weekend, the National Stonewall Democrats heard from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Sebelius told the crowd she had tried to stop the anti-gay marriage amendment in her state "because it was the wrong direction and the wrong message." Patrick encouraged LGBT people to "stake a claim" on the Democratic Party and "don't let anybody push you to the margins." Stonewall and the Matthew Shepard Foundation hosted a fundraiser Sunday night, as did the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Stonewall hosted a tea party Tuesday afternoon where Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean appeared. The National Black Justice Coalition hosted a reception for people of color on Tuesday along with the Human Rights Campaign. HRC and the Victory Fund hosted a lunch for the LGBT caucus on Tuesday and the Human Rights Campaign staged a concert that included performers Melissa Etheridge and Cyndi Lauper, among others.

The HRC/Victory Fund luncheon clearly was the highlight of the gatherings, thanks to an appearance -- one day after she riveted the nation with her convention speech -- from Michelle Obama, who told the crowd that "discrimination has no place in a nation founded on equality."

Quote of the month
"Ever since I met Del 55 years ago, I could never imagine a day would come when she wouldn't be by my side. I am so lucky to have known her, loved her, and been her partner in all things. I also never imagined there would be a day that we would actually be able to get married. I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed."
-- Pioneering lesbian activist Phyllis Lyon in a statement on the passing of Del Martin, her wife and activism co-conspirator, on Aug. 27.

September: Primary results a mixed bag for LGBT community

The Sept. 16 Democratic primaries brought some major wins for the LGBT community, but also some losses, including the defeat of pro-marriage equality incumbent state Rep. Patrick Natale by an anti-gay challenger. LGBT advocates were also stung by the defeat of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, one of the LGBT community's staunchest Beacon Hill allies, by Sonia Chang-Diaz, a pro-equality progressive who lost the majority of LGBT institutional support to Wilkerson.

In conceding defeat to her supporters at a post-election party at Roxbury's Hen House Wings 'N' Waffles restaurant, Wilkerson reflected on her 15 years of advocacy for her district's different communities, including the LGBT community. "To the LGBT community," said Wilkerson, "I pray that you will find as aggressive and steadfast an advocate as I believe that I was."

But the biggest win of the night was the re-election of Medford/Somerville Rep. Carl Sciortino, who was forced to run a sticker campaign to hold onto his 34th Middlesex District seat. Sciortino, an openly gay lawmaker who has been a strong advocate for marriage equality and transgender rights, defeated challenger Bob Trane, a Somerville Alderman, with a massive 400-person volunteer operation that made sure voters got to the polls sticker in hand.

Quote of the month
"I expect Senator McCain will receive strong support from gay and lesbian Americans. LGBT people are not single-issue voters. Gay rights issues are a critical part of the equation, but so are many other issues impacting our daily lives - foreign policy, the economy, jobs, energy policy, health care reform, and taxes. Gay and lesbian Republicans believe Senator John McCain is the most qualified person to lead our country."
-- Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Sammon, in a statement announcing the group's endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket.

October: Marriage comes to Connecticut!

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Oct. 10, that gay couples in Connecticut must be able to obtain marriage licenses the same as straight couples. The ruling would take effect in November.

"We did it! We did it!" Anne Stanback, executive director of Love Makes A Family, the organization that has lead the effort to secure marriage equality in Connecticut, said to wild applause at a rally in Hartford later that day. "This is an amazing day in Connecticut, a historic day, and so many people were involved in this victory," she added.
It was also clear that Ben Klein is the new Mary Bonauto. Klein, the GLAD attorney who argued on behalf of the Kerrigan plaintiffs before the Connecticut Supreme Court last year just as Bonauto successfully argued Goodridge before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 -- received a hero's welcome, stepping to the microphone amid thundering chants of "Ben! Ben! Ben! Ben!"

"After four years of litigation and after seventeen months waiting for a decision in this case, there's not much left for a lawyer to say," said Klein. "But the only thing I do want to say is, what a great day for equality and justice in this state."

Quote of the month
"We were shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the recent allegations. MassEquality has supported Senator Wilkerson in the past for her strong leadership on LGBT issues, including her early, constant, and passionate support of marriage equality. We remain thankful for that leadership -- but the charges, if true, are a clear breach of the public trust, and unacceptable behavior for any elected official."
-- MassEquality Executive Director Marc Solomon, responding to the arrest of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson (D-Boston) on federal corruption charges.

November: Election Day victories and crushing defeat

More than any other presidential candidate before, Barack Obama included gay people as part of his core speeches to voters, despite decades of conventional wisdom that has held that the mere acknowledgement of gays could imperil a campaign. Obama acknowledged gays when he announced his run for the presidency. He did so before national television audiences and before church audiences that were considered by some to be reluctant to associate with gays. He did so in accepting the Democratic nomination in Colorado, and he did so in his final campaign stops in Jacksonville, Florida; Columbus, Ohio; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

And he did so when he delivered his victory speech to a crowded stadium in Chicago - and to the nation - on Election Night.

The triumph not only marked an historic moment in American history with his election as the first African American as president, but a potentially dramatic improvement in the political climate in Washington for LGBT people.

Obama said his election is testament to the power of democracy "spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled."

But elation over Obama's victory was seriously tempered by the passage of anti-gay ballot initiatives in Arizona, Florida, Arkansas and most notably, California -- where 52 percent of voters supported Prop. 8, thus rolling back marriage equality in the state.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, the legislature's pro-equality majority grew from 151 in June 2007 to 158. Among those voted into office was out lesbian Kate Hogan of Stow, who will succeed retiring state Rep. Pat Walrath (D-Stow) in the 3rd Middlesex House District.
Oh, and voters in Colorado sent the third openly gay person to Washington to serve in Congress: Democrat Jared Polis will join U.S. Reps Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin in the House's openly gay caucus come January.

Quote of the month
"WTF, California?" "When do we get to vote on your marriage?"
-- The text on signs at a Nov. 15 anti-Prop. 8 rally at Boston City Hall.

December: Obama throws gays under the bus already

President-elect Barack Obama set off a controversy by inviting anti-gay evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who campaigned strongly for Prop. 8, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration ceremony.

"Every gay person who paid attention to this today felt like we were kicked in the stomach," said longtime lesbian Democratic activist Hilary Rosen. Rosen, who is a regular political commentator on CNN, told Anderson Cooper Dec. 17 that the invitation to such a "divisive figure ... on a day of bringing the country together" is an "outrageous mistake."

Also among the many LGBT critics of the move was our own U.S. Rep. Barney Frank who said that he, too, was "very disappointed" by Obama's decision.

"Religious leaders obviously have every right to speak out in opposition to anti-discrimination measures, even in the degrading terms that Rev. Warren has used with regard to same-sex marriage," said Frank. "But that does not confer upon them the right to a place of honor in the inauguration ceremony of a president whose stated commitment to LGBT rights won him the strong support of the great majority of those who support that cause."

Frank said Warren's participation is not as one in a series of people presenting various views but rather "a mark of respect and approval by those who are being inaugurated."

Quote of the month
"It's historic. I don't know of any other openly transgender person working as a staffer for a federal legislator ... so that's pretty amazing. It's a huge thing for our community, I think, particularly because we have so few people in any kind of key leadership positions or political positions, that this is really helping to move us forward."
-- Gunner Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), on the appointment of trans activist Diego Sanchez to a position as an aide to Congressman Barney Frank. Sanchez will be the first openly transgender staffer on Capitol Hill.