On June 16, 2015, my wife, Sheryl and I were at a workshop in St. Louis. During a break, we stepped out into the street and witnessed a crowd of LGBTQ+ folks walking boldly by, waving Pride flags, with a government building next to them displaying a large one flying in the summer air.
We stopped to ask a couple what they were celebrating. They told us the exciting news that the Supreme Court had just ruled that marriage was now open to everyone, including gay and lesbian couples.
I began protesting for marital rights in 1992 in a “Walk Against Hate: A Walk for Love and Justice” march in Oregon, from Eugene to Portland—150 miles away. After two weeks, we led the LGBTQ+ celebration through the streets of the city, right behind the “Dykes on Bikes.”
These young women were my “children.” I could not have been prouder.
The Obergefell v. Hodges decision had a major impact on our own lives. It was illegal everywhere when we made our own vows to each other in Bellevue, Iowa, on May 1, 2005, with our two Italian greyhounds and kitten as witnesses.
The following year, while on our way to Berkeley, California, to finish our education to become clergy in the Disciples of Christ, we were among the lucky couples who were legally married on November 2, during a six-month state hiatus allowing same-sex marriage. Eighteen thousand couples took advantage of it until the cell door was clanged shut again.
It was a day full of rejoicing.
St. Louis is most noted for its Arch, so large that it takes an elevator to reach the top. It is the most imposing visual symbol of the city.
Right next to it, however, is the courtroom where, in 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled on the Dred Scott case. This landmark decision held that the Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of Black African descent and, therefore, they could not enjoy the rights and privileges conferred upon citizens.
The decision is widely considered the worst in the Court’s history, denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, and poor legal reasoning. It has been said that it “stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions.” Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes later called it the Court’s “greatest self-inflicted wound.”
Though the Court ruled against Scott, the family of his original owner purchased him from his owner’s widow and her new husband—an abolitionist—in order to grant him freedom. He died of tuberculosis only 16 months later, but his wife, Harriet, lived until 1876.
Last week, my spouse and I had the opportunity to join a “No Kings” rally, one of tens of thousands held across the nation. This national protest, the largest in the nation’s 250-year history, was the third. And, most assuredly, it will not be—it cannot be—the last.
The forces of power are starting new wars with thousands of soldiers being sent to Iran. DEI programs are being dismantled.
The Department of Justice is being weakened. LGBTQ+ protections are being attacked at both the national and state levels and tens of thousands of people are rounded up willy-nilly and held in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions—locked up with the key thrown away without even a hearing.
Even the White House, symbolic of the presidency, has become a mockery—the Rose Garden and West Wing altered at the whim of a would-be dictator, treating it as a private residence. Now he is directing the construction of a 10,000-seat ballroom.
To continue fighting for our freedoms, constantly under threat, we must rest—but also, whistles in hand, be ready to step out for the next protest and continue working to restore the scales of justice.
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advocate and educator for those experiencing hearing loss.