In mid-April, Iowa rocked the nation.  Word quickly spread when the Iowa Supreme Court struck down an earlier statewide ban on same-sex marriage.  No one in the other 49 states saw it coming.  Who’d believe this small, typically conservative state in the Midwest would be one of the first to legalize gay marriage?

Camilla Taylor, that’s who.  According to a Washington Post article, Taylor began laying the ground work in 2002 when she joined Lambda Legal’s Midwest office.  In the beginning of her battle, progressives doubted her.  In the end, this straight ally was the key to achieving what everyone else believed to be nearly impossible.

Just days later, Vermont voted to override Republican governor Jim Douglas’s veto of the same-sex marriage bill.  This made the Northeast state the fourth in the nation to allow gays to marry, and the third in that region to do so.  Not too long after that, the District of Columbia approved a measure to recognize same-sex marriages that occurred elsewhere.  And then, Governor David Paterson of New York introduced a measure into the legislature that would legalize gay marriage in his state.

Is your head spinning yet?  Was this a dream?  Are states, particularly those in the Northeast (three other states in the region are considering similar bills), competing to see who can legalize gay marriage the quickest?  By court or by General Assembly, there seems to be a race to the finish line.

Will there be another surprise state to emerge in the competition?

Mississippi?  Just kidding.

Texas?  Nah, don’t mess with Texas.

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, a Republican and a 2012 Presidential prospect, is in favor of civil unions.  Could he be swayed to advocate for marriage instead?

Hey, New Mexico, you’ve got a steadily growing progressive base and are considered a swing state with your five awesome electoral votes.  Want to freak out the rest of the Southwest?

Oregon, or Washington, care to show up your West Coast counterpart California?

It doesn’t matter which state is next.  The important thing is that there will be a next state.  There has been some debate about whether these rapid developments will backfire on the gay community.  Conservative groups have already begun their media blitz against equality.  LGBT know that we can’t win them all; in the past, we’ve lost far more than we have won.  The bottom line, though, is that positive things are happening across the country, and legions of Americans don’t seem to be rising up the way they did in 2004.

Mark Twain once said, “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.”  Okay, so it’s not a glowing recommendation from one of our nation’s greatest authors.  But it means there will come a day when an LGBT couple can walk confidently into a Kentucky courthouse and ask for a marriage license without rejection.  Forty years after the Stonewall riots, the LGBT has come a long, even in Kentucky.  We may be the last to cross this finish line, but even the last place finisher feels a sense of accomplishment and pride when the race is done.

There are those among us that love attention and drama.  When they have neither, they tend to throw immature fits to get what they want.  You know someone like this … or you are that person.  Either way, rest assured that this article isn’t about you, teenage girls, or Kim Jong Il (Hooray, Dear Leader!).  Nope.  It’s all about Gary Tapp.

Gary who?

Exactly.

He is a relatively unknown Republican State Senator from Shelbyville.  He’s the one that filed that Senate Bill 68 you may have heard about.  In case you haven’t, this gem will prevent foster care placement and adoption by people “cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky.”  You know what this means, right?

A short session, particularly one in which a budget shortfall is the primary focus, means there won’t be time for divisive legislation.  This and other difficult problems facing our state have been enough to make even the most partisan political operatives set aside their personal agendas and work with the opposition.  But not everybody bought in to the idea of, you know, actually making a difference.  Sen. Tapp, for example, saw this as a way to make a name for himself, be seen as protector of “family values” and steal some headlines from Senate President David Williams.

So on February 5^th, he filed a piece of legislation that he knew would get attention.  His adoption bill, which also affects straight couples, laid quietly in the Senate Judiciary Committee until a couple of weeks ago.  LGBTQ groups, including Lexington Fairness, were alerted, became infuriated and began spreading the word.

The groups have hit the human rights aspect.  But do you think anti-gay advocates believe homosexuality didn’t exist in 1776?  Our “lifestyle” has been blamed for the fall of the Roman Empire!  The country’s founders could have banned it from the outset, but they believed in freedom and privacy.  How dare they?  I guess guys in wigs can be real jerks.  (No offense to the drag queens.)

LGBTQ groups have also argued that the bill is not in a child’s best interest.  Oh, here’s some irony – the bill is called “The Child Welfare Adoption Act.”  There are thousands of kids in the state’s custody.  Some will get lost in the system.  Some will even commit suicide once they age out of foster care.  Did Sen. Tapp ask the kids what they thought was best for them?  Probably not because if he did they might say they just want to be loved and to know that someone cares.  But what do they know?  They’re just kids.

LGBTQ groups have even talked about something conservatives understand – money.  The state has none.  The focus of the 2009 session was a fiscal crisis!  The passage of SB 68 puts an even heavier burden on the state’s finances and overstretched social workers.  The General Assembly would have to scramble to find millions of dollars to take care of the additional kids as well as make up for the millions lost in federal funding due to the policy change.

These are all great points, but it won’t just be coordinated lobbying efforts that defeat the bill.  In the end, it will be a number of contributing factors – time, the spirit of cooperation, etc. – that will most likely kill it when the gavel drops for Sine Die.  Regardless, it won’t be law.  When you get right down to it, Sen. Tapp probably knew his bill wouldn’t pass.  He just needed to throw a legislative tantrum.  He desperately wanted some love and to overcome his irrelevancy in the State Senate for just a little while.  Hmm, this seems like a discussion for him and his therapist.  You know, on second thought, don’t give Gary angry letters.  Give the man a hug!