MARRIAGE EQUALITY TIME LINE
December 31, 1966. A New Year’s Eve police raid on the Black Cat Tavern, a gay bar in Los Angeles’ Silverlake neighborhood, spawns days of protests and riots by a gay community unwilling to take discrimination and gay-bashing lying down.
June 12, 1967. Loving v. Virginia declares the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 unconstitutional and ends marriage bans based on race.
June 28, 1969. The Stonewall riots mark the first instance in American history where gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals. The media covers the protests, galvanizing the movement.
1973. The American Psychiatric Association announces removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and begins to promote antidiscrimination laws to protect LGBT Americans.
January 8, 1978. Harvey Milk is the first openly gay man to be elected to public office when he joins the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He begins by delivering his “Hope” Speech, inspiring an emboldened gay community.
1982. The Village Voice becomes the first business to offer domestic partnership benefits, followed by the city of Berkeley in 1984.
July 14, 1983. Gerry Studds (D-MA) becomes the first openly gay member of Congress when the House Ethics Committee recommends he be reprimanded for a sexual relationship with a male page. Congressman Studds is reelected to the House six more times after coming out.
1983. “Same-Sex Marriage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of the Constitution,” a thesis by a student named Evan Wolfson, is completed. The 140-page manifesto becomes a blueprint for building marriage equality.
June 30, 1986. In Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court rules that homosexual sex is not protected under the right to privacy.
May 30, 1987. Barney Frank becomes the second openly gay member of Congress and the first sitting member to voluntarily come out of the closet.
1992. David Mixner, a gay rights activist and political strategist, serves as an advisor to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential campaign. As a “liaison to the gay community,” he organizes the first gay fundraiser for a White House candidate.
January 1993. Award-winning singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge comes out publicly at the Triangle Ball, the first inaugural ball held in honor of gays and lesbians.
May 5, 1993. The gay marriage debate “begins” in Hawaii with Baehr v. Lewin, which states that Hawaii cannot keep same-sex couples from marrying without violating equal protection statutes.
December 21, 1993. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” becomes official US policy for gay men and women serving in the military.
May 20, 1996. Romer v. Evans extends to gays and lesbians the guarantees of the equal protection clause.
September 21, 1996. The Defense of Marriage Act passes and is signed by President Clinton.
April 30, 1997. Television host Ellen DeGeneres comes out on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
October 1, 1997. Former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Virginia Apuzzo becomes the highest-ranking openly gay official in the federal government when she is appointed assistant to the president for management and administration.
July 1, 2000. Vermont enacts civil unions, the precursor to same-sex marriage.
November 2002. David Cicilline of Providence, Rhode Island, is elected the first gay mayor of a US state capital.
June 26, 2003. Lawrence v. Texas strikes down sodomy laws in Texas, making same-sex activity legal in every US state and territory, effectively overturning Bowers v. Hardwick.
February 2004. Fourteen days into his term, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced he will begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
May 17, 2004. Same-sex marriage is legalized in Massachusetts.
May 14, 2005. Massachusetts Democrats endorse gay marriage in their platform, becoming the first state-wide party to do so.
November 2008. Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment, is passed in California, making it the only state that accepted and then revoked the right to same-sex marriage. The amendment ruled: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in the State of California.” Activists across the country are shocked out of complacency, galvanizing the movement for marriage.
April 3, 2009. Same-sex marriage is legalized in Iowa with the help of lawyer Camilla Taylor, currently director of Lambda Legal’s Marriage Project.
August 12, 2009. President Obama presents Harvey Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, remarking, “His name was Harvey Milk and he was here to recruit us, all of us, to join a movement and change a nation. For much of his early life he had silenced himself. In the prime of his life he was silenced by the act of another. But in the brief time in which he spoke and ran and led, his voice stirred the aspirations of millions of people. He could become, after several attempts, one of the first openly gay Americans elected to public office. And his message of hope, hope unashamed, hope unafraid, could not ever be silenced. It was Harvey Milk who said it best: You gotta give ’em hope.” Lesbian tennis star Billie Jean King is awarded the Medal of Freedom at the same time.
September 25, 2009. Bill Clinton says in an interview with Anderson Cooper, “I am no longer opposed to [gay marriage]. I think if people want to make commitments that last a lifetime, they ought to be able to do it.”
October 11, 2009. Governor Arnold Schwarznegger designates May 22 “Harvey Milk Day,” weeks after inducting Milk into the California Hall of Fame, marking the first time any state has officially honored a gay person.
February 23, 2011. President Obama instructs the US Department of Justice to stop defending the constitutionality of DOMA. Congress is left to mount the legal defense of this federal law.
July 24, 2011. Governor Andrew Cuomo helps to pass same-sex marriage in New York after identifying a coalition of Republicans who are willing to vote their conscience. “Marriage equality changed life for people,” Governor Cuomo later said. “It provided a level of acceptance for millions of people and their families.”
September 20, 2011. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed.
September 30, 2011. Congressman Jared Polis (D-Colorado) becomes first openly gay member of Congress to become a parent.
2012. Leaders of the DNC agree to include same-sex marriage and the repeal of DOMA on the party platform for 2012.
February 13, 2012. Governor Christine Gregoire signs the Freedom to Marry Act into law, making Washington the first state to repeal its own Defense of Marriage Act.
May 9, 2012. President Obama publicly endorses marriage equality.
July 7, 2012. Barney Frank becomes the first sitting congressman to enter into a same-sex marriage with partner James Ready.
November 6, 2012. Maine and Maryland legalize gay marriage by popular vote; Minnesota fails to pass a permanent amendment banning gay marriage; and Washington voters reject a referendum to overturn marriage equality—marking the first time the issue has won at the ballot box.
December 2012. The Supreme Court agrees to hear two separate cases regarding gay marriage.
February 25, 2013. Dozens of prominent Republicans, including influential businesswoman Meg Whitman and former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr., sign an amicus brief arguing that gay people have a constitutional right to marry.
June 26, 2013. A great day for civil rights: the Supreme Court, in two 5–4 decisions with different compositions of justices, rules in support of gay marriage. In the DOMA case—US v. Windsor—the law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legalized by individual states is deemed unconstitutional. A second case lets stand a ruling that found California’s 2008 Proposition 8—a voter initiative banning gay marriages—to be illegal.