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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. |