News
10 years later, Goodridge decision still seen as milestone
Advocates see path for nationwide marriage equality in another decade
Mary Bonauto litigated the case that brought marriage equality to Massachusetts 10 years ago. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Ten years have passed since marriage equality came to the first state in the nation following a historic decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, helping to usher in swift change in attitudes and law around gay and lesbian couples.
On Nov. 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down a 4-3 ruling in the case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, bringing marriage equality to the Bay State.
“The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry,” the decision states. “We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals.”
Despite efforts from then-Gov. Mitt Romney to limit the ruling to civil unions and enact a constitutional amendment to rescind the decision, supporters of the ruling won the day and marriage equality has remained the law of the land in Massachusetts.
Mary Bonauto, who litigated the Goodridge case on behalf of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and now serves as civil rights director there, said on the 10th anniversary of the decision the ruling “broke a historic barrier that we have never been able to overcome.”
“And it did so in the shared values of our constitution that we all believe in equality and we don’t have second-class citizens in this nation under the law,” Bonauto said.
The magnitude of the decision was bolstered, Bonauto said, six months later by the same-sex couples who went to the altar to marry.
“Now you had principle and you had reality working together, and all this freedom and equality from the court, and the you saw the joy in couples who finally were able to marry,” Bonauto said. “I think actually having couples marry was profound. It had to happen somewhere, somebody had to be first.”
Evan Wolfson, an early proponent of marriage equality and current president of Freedom to Marry, said having same-sex marriage legal someplace in the country was transformational for the movement.
“The breakthrough we were always working for in those early years was to make it real somewhere because we knew that once people had a chance to see with their own eyes families helped, and no one hurt, the opposition and resistance and fears would begin to subside, and we could build on that win to the rest of the wins still needed,” Wolfson said.
But the victory in Massachusetts, followed by then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to distribute marriage licenses to gay couples, was met by a significant roadblock in the 2004 election when 11 states adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. President George W. Bush won re-election after making support for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage a prominent part of his campaign.
Pointing to political analysis debunking the notion that the marriage issue drove voters to the polls to re-elect Bush, Bonauto expressed skepticism that the ruling led to the win for Republicans in the 2004 election.
“The way this all got started, I think, people were putting two-and-two together about moral values, and the 22 percent of voters had stated that their most important consideration was ‘moral values,’ and the 11 amendments,” Bonauto said. “In the exit polling and so on about what this moral values means, for a great many people it meant the Iraq war. So it wasn’t even clear that the moral values voters were Bush voters.”
Bonauto said when she filed the case in 2001, 36 states already had statutory bans on same-sex marriage in response to advancing efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Hawaii in the 1990s.
“From my perspective, it wasn’t really so much a backlash as a continued lashing,” Bonauto said. “People who had already taken steps to be very explicit about marriage bans, the only place they could go, continue to hone their political credentials, was to be even more draconian, and so that’s what happened by and large.”
Referencing a speech he delivered prior to Election Day of that year, Wolfson said the win in Massachusetts still trumped the losses at the ballot box in 2004 because it was still progress from the status quo.
“Even in 2004, I was on record before the election as saying that any year in which we endured some anti-gay attacks, but won marriage was a winning year because wins trump losses,” Wolfson said. “We would use the power of the win to overcome the temporary barriers erected in our losses, and that’s precisely what we are doing.”
It wasn’t until 2008 when other states would follow suit after courts in Connecticut and California ruled in favor of marriage equality, although the victory in California was (until recently) abrogated several months later by the passage of Proposition 8.
Now 16 states and D.C. are poised to have marriage equality on the books in the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of these unions.
The ruling against DOMA at the Supreme Court was coupled by a decision from justices that restored marriage equality to California. In the months that followed, the New Jersey Supreme Court has instituted marriage equality in the Garden State and state legislatures in Illinois and Hawaii have extended marriage to gay couples. At any time, the New Mexico Supreme Court could hand down a ruling in favor of marriage equality as a result of pending litigation.
M.V. Lee Badgett, research director at the Williams Institute, estimated about 100,000 gay couples have married since the Goodridge decision 10 years ago, but the effect of having marriage equality in Massachusetts and other places goes far beyond numbers.
“It will take a while for researchers to analyze and publish more detailed findings on the effects of the ability to marry and of actual marriage,” Badgett said. “One early study showed that same-sex couples in Massachusetts feel more social inclusion, and one sample of gay men showed lower health care costs and health care utilization. In California we’ve seen that psychological health is better for same-sex couples who marry or had domestic partnerships.”
Wolfson said the growth of marriage equality in the country is noteworthy in many respects, including in terms of percentages.
“As we celebrate the end of this big year, we now have 38 percent of the American people living in a freedom to marry state, up from zero a decade ago,” Wolfson said. “Gay people can share in the freedom to marry in 18 countries, in five continents, up from zero virtually a decade ago. That, by any standard, is enormous progress and real momentum, but we have to finish the job.”
Reflecting back on the decision 10 years ago, Bonauto said she hoped at the time this much change would happen a decade later, but confessed “there were times that I certainly wasn’t sure.”
“I had always hoped that the arc for us would be what it was in some ways for interracial marriage, where courts rebuff and rebuff and rebuff, and then in 1948 the California Supreme Court struck down the interracial marriage ban,” Bonauto said. “More states repealed those after the California ruling, so that 19 years later when the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia, Virginia was only one of 16 states that had such bans.”
During a news conference held on the same day as the 10th anniversary of the Goodridge decision, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also noted progress made in the past decade in response to a more general question on LGBT rights.
“I think that anybody who looks at LGBT rights and the road travelled in this country just in the past decade would rightly be pleased by the significant progress that’s been made, even as we acknowledge that more work needs to be done, more progress need to be done,” Carney said.
Carney later told the Blade via email he wasn’t making a direct reference to the Goodridge decision, but his comments were meant “just as a broad reference to the progress made over the last decade.”
And hopes continue for a brighter future as advocates anticipate one of the pending federal lawsuits in 20 states across the country will make its way to the Supreme Court, delivering a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide in less than 10 years. Following the Supreme Court rulings in June, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said marriage equality will reach the entire nation within five years.
Bonauto said she hopes the Supreme Court will settle the marriage issue once and for all, but isn’t completely sure which way the justices would rule and emphasized hard work is necessary for a favorable outcome.
“I think we have to work with the same intensity that we have up to this point and hopefully the Supreme Court will settle the issue, and then if for some reason it does not, which I think would be extremely unfortunate, I just think we have to continue doing what we’ve been doing state by state,” she said.
Freedom to Marry has prepared a “Roadmap to Victory” in anticipation of a Supreme Court decision that entails winning more states and building support for same-sex marriage in nationwide polls. Eyes will be on Oregon in 2014 to see whether it will reverse a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage at the ballot.
Wolfson said he “absolutely” believes that supporters of same-sex marriage will be able to finish the job.
“The good news for us is the same winning strategy that brought us to this point of momentum is the strategy that is going to bring it all home,” Wolfson said.
Delaware
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
The Collective to feature gift shop, queer museum, more
During Pride month this year, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective (DSGC) announced plans for “The Collective,” the first LGBTQ+ visitor center in Wilmington in nearly 40 years.
“We’ve been talking about the concept of a brick-and-mortar space for a long time,” said Noah Duckett, co-founder of the DSGC.
A licensed clinical social worker, Duckett co-founded DSGC with his mother, Julissa Corianno, in 2018. Established under Sussex Pride, the DSGC serves as a hub for leaders and organizations working directly with LGBTQ+ communities throughout Delaware.
“Our vision for The Collective is a place where our community can come to learn, create, work, and be inspired,” said Corianno.
The Collective will feature a visitor center and gift shop highlighting LGBTQ-owned businesses in Delaware.
“I think that this is something that’s going to benefit our community so much,” said Duckett.
Some of the LGBTQ-owned businesses that DSGC has already partnered with include Stressed Induced Art Attack, Moonbeam Art Collaborative, Voce Coffee, Groovy Gemini Co., Scout Cafe, Macaron Social, and Huxley and Hiro.
“Specifically in Wilmington, we haven’t had an LGBTQ-dedicated space in almost 40 years,” said Duckett.
The last LGBTQ community center in Wilmington was The Griffin Community Center, which was open for only a few years in the 1990s.
“The Griffin was a community space in the ’90s, founded by our friends James and Evo, who are so incredible and have been so supportive throughout this process,” said Duckett.
Duckett said the DSGC hopes to carry on The Griffin’s legacy.
“I think now more than ever, there’s more and more spaces closing their doors. More and more spaces are losing funding, seeing reduced funding and reduced access, especially LGBTQ+ organizations and communities,” said Duckett.
The Collective will also feature Delaware’s first LGBTQ history museum, curated by queer historian Carolanne Deal.
“We don’t have any permanent displays in the state about Delaware’s queer history, and we want people to be able to access that history any day of the year, not just during Pride month,” said Deal.
With a master’s degree in art history for museum professionals, Deal has more than seven years of experience in curatorial work and hands-on collections care.
“It’s mainly going to be a graphic display with photographs, articles, and accessible text that draws people in and creates a story for the community,” said Deal.
Although the museum will not initially have an object collection, Deal said she hopes to add physical archival pieces in the future.
“Delaware has been at the forefront of a lot of queer civil rights, and it’ll be really amazing to have that enshrined in a permanent display that’s not only up for Pride month,” said Deal.
Duckett said DSGC is currently raising funds with the goal of breaking ground this summer and opening by the end of the year.
“We would love to have rent paid for, like, multiple years up front,” said Duckett.
Duckett told the Blade that fundraising efforts have reached just under $29,000 and that the organization is awaiting several major donations from community partner organizations.
However, he said DSGC continues to be denied many grants tied to federal or state funding because of restrictions on those funds being used for LGBTQ-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.
Netherlands
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
Event capped off two weeks of celebrations in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday participated in the World Pride March in Amsterdam.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin and Paolo Rondelli, who in 2022 became the world’s first openly gay head of state when he became Captain Regent of San Marino, are among those who participated alongside Massachusetts state Rep. Jack Lewis and Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Ukraine, and others.
Members of D66, the centrist Dutch political party that Prime Minister Rob Jetten heads, also marched.
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister. He participated in the opening of the World Pride Human Rights Conference on Aug. 5 and spoke on a panel with Rondelli, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and other gay and lesbian current and former heads of government.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The march took place a week after hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
A terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day on July 25 left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
The incident overshadowed World Pride, which began hours earlier and ended on Saturday.
Dutch authorities increased security measures in the aftermath of the July 25 attack. No incidents were reported during World Pride.
National
HRC condemns DoE removal of LGBTQ bullying data from federal survey
Organization cites rise in homophobic, transphobic policies, worse mental health outcomes
The Human Rights Campaign is slamming the White House — and the Department of Education — following their removal of some LGBTQ bullying data from federal data collection.
The Civil Rights Data Collection is a mandated survey of all public school districts that collects figures on a wide variety of statistics about students — including demographics that include race, ethnicity, sex, disability status, and English learner status; course-level enrollment data, such as how many students are enrolled in advanced placement or honors classes; and school climate information, such as rates of bullying, harassment, suspensions, and expulsions.
That data collection has been ongoing since 1968 — nearly six decades — but now has a major change in what questions are being asked, or not asked, that advocates are largely attributing to the Trump-Vance administration’s culture war fight on LGBTQ children in the country.
Changes to the 2025-2026 survey questions — approved by the Office of Budget and Management in July — eliminated a space for schools to report how many students identify as nonbinary, how often those students are victims of harassment and bullying, and whether school districts have policies prohibiting gender identity-based incidents.
K-12 Dive, a publication that focuses its reporting on news related to K-12 education, first published a list of these data collection changes from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026.
These questions, as well as others that included LGBTQ student topics on treatment in schools, were added to the CRDC under the Biden-Harris administration. By including these questions, policymakers hoped this would lead to increased investigations into discrimination complaints, initiate compliance reviews, and provide policy guidance to districts, according to Education Department documents.
The CRDC also eliminated the mention of “gender identity” from the definition of rape and sexual assault. The prior collection of data (before the Trump-Vance administration changed it) defined rape as something that could be done to “all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Now, the new data collection questions say, “All students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation can be victims of rape,” removing “gender identity” from the new definition.
By removing and changing definitions, this could have a real-world impact on some of the school’s most vulnerable students. According to CRDC data from 2021-2022, more than 1,800 school districts reported enrolling one or more nonbinary students.
Additional data also shows that the changes to data collection is harming public school students. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee released a report in April finding that the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to all but close the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has left students facing discrimination and harassment throughout the country without the federal recourse they are entitled to under federal law.
The Williams Institute, a think tank that collects data and conducts research on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, has data indicating the true number of nonbinary and transgender children is much higher — they estimate that for children ages 13 to 17, nearly 724,000 identify as nonbinary or trans.
This is in line with a slew of policies pushed by the Trump-Vance administration since their federal takeover. Within his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This directive attempts to make the federal definition of gender unchangeable, determined by sex assigned at birth alone.
Within his first month of his second term, Trump issued Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directs federal agencies to restrict gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries — for individuals under the age of 19.
He also pushed multiple anti-trans executive orders, including Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” targeting trans athletes and military members, respectively.
These policies have a real-world impact on trans people.
The Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to crisis and suicide prevention for LGBTQ people under 25, reported that, for the seventh year in a row, LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for suicide as a result of mistreatment and stigmatization.
Trevor Project data showed that nearly 60 percent of LGBTQ young people ages 13-17 said they were bullied in the past year, and that 36 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the last year. The data shows a bigger discrepancy for trans youth, with that number hovering around 40 percent considering suicide.
HRC President Kelley Robinson issued a statement following the approval of the new data collection questions that leaves LGBTQ students’ bullying statistics under — if not completely unreported.
“If there was even a shadow of a doubt, this latest move by the Trump administration makes it abundantly clear they do not care about the safety of LGBTQ+ students, and trans students in particular,” Robinson said. “These are adults who should be protecting our kids. And instead, they are making sure bullying and harassment are not tracked. If they are not tracked, bullying and harassment cannot be prevented or stopped — which is exactly what the Trump administration wants. Parents deserve to know their kids are safe at school, and every single young person deserves dignity and safety at school. Anything less is plain evil.”
HRC has a “Welcoming Schools” initiative that they say is the “most comprehensive” bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation. The program includes LGBTQ and gender-inclusive resources for schools, help navigating special education and disability resources for LGBTQ-identifying students, and other tools to help schools become more inclusive.
This program has been in effect for nearly two decades and, according to HRC, reaches nearly 750,000 students.
The Washington Blade reached out to both the Department of Education and Office of Management and Budget for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
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