Tumultuous barely begins to describe the series of events that this small piece of land has seen over the past few millennia. Great empires have risen and fallen, conquerors have come and gone, and the population has repeatedly found itself trapped in the crossfire of war.
The Preclassic Period is generally thought to have coincided with the emergence of stable social structures and early forms of agriculture, pottery and tool-making in what is now Mexico and Guatemala. The improvement in the food supply led to an increase in population, a higher standard of living and developments in agricultural and artistic techniques. Decorative pots and healthier, fatter corn strains were produced. Even at the beginning of the Preclassic period, people in Guatemala spoke an early form of the Maya language.
By the middle Preclassic period (800–300 BC) there were rich villages in the Copán Valley, and villages had been founded at what would become the majestic city of Tikal, amid the jungles of El Petén. Trade routes developed, with coastal peoples exchanging salt and seashells for highland tribes' tool-grade obsidian.
As the Maya honed their agricultural techniques, including the use of fertilizer and elevated fields, a noble class emerged, constructing temples that consisted of raised platforms of earth topped by thatch-roofed shelters. The local potentate was buried beneath the shelter, increasing the site's sacred power. Such temples have been found at Uaxactún, Tikal and El Mirador. Kaminaljuyú, in Guatemala City, reached its peak from about 400 BC to AD 100, with thousands of inhabitants and scores of temples built on earth mounds.
In El Petén, where limestone was abundant, the Maya began to build platform temples from stone. As each succeeding local potentate demanded a bigger temple, larger and larger platforms were built over existing platforms, eventually forming huge pyramids. The potentate was buried deep within the stack of platforms. El Tigre pyramid at El Mirador, 18 stories high, is believed to be the largest ever built by the Maya. More and more pyramids were built around large plazas. The stage was set for the flowering of Classic Maya civilization.
The Classic Maya were organized into numerous city-states. While Tikal began to assume a primary role around AD 250, El Mirador had been mysteriously abandoned about a century earlier. Some scholars believe a severe drought hastened this great city's demise.
Each city-state had its noble house, headed by a priestly king who placated the gods by shedding his blood by piercing his tongue, penis or ears with sharp objects. As sacred head of his community, the king also had to lead his soldiers into battle against rival cities, capturing prisoners for use in human sacrifices.
A typical Maya city functioned as the religious, political and market hub for the surrounding farming hamlets. Its ceremonial center focused on plazas surrounded by tall temple pyramids and lower buildings with warrens of small rooms. Stelae and altars were carved with dates, histories and elaborate human and divine figures.
In the first part of the Classic period, most of the city-states were probably grouped into two loose military alliances centered on Calakmul, in Mexico's Campeche state, and Tikal.
In the late 8th century, trade between Maya states waned and conflict grew. By the early 10th century the cities of Tikal, Yaxchilán, Copán, Quiriguá and Piedras Negras had reverted to minor towns or even villages, and much of El Petén was abandoned. Many explanations, including population pressure, drought and ecological damage, have been offered for the collapse of the Classic Maya period.
Some of the Maya who abandoned El Petén must have moved southwest into the highlands of Guatemala. In the 13th and 14th centuries they were joined by Maya-Toltecs from the Tabasco or Yucatán areas of Mexico. Groups of these newcomers set up a series of rival states in the Guatemalan highlands: the most prominent were the K'iche' (or Quiché; capital, K’um’arkaj, near modern Santa Cruz del Quiché), the Kaqchiquels (capital, Iximché, near Tecpán), the Mam (capital, Zaculeu, near Huehuetenango), the Tz'utujil (capital, Chuitinamit, near Santiago Atitlán) and the Poqomam (capital, Mixco Viejo, north of Guatemala City). Another group from the Yucatán, the Itzáes, wound up at Lago de Petén Itzá in El Petén, settling in part on the island that is today called Flores.
Spaniards under Hernán Cortés defeated the Aztec Empire based at Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City) in 1521. It only took a couple of years for the conquistadors to turn to Guatemala in their search for wealth. Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortés' most brutal lieutenants, entered Guatemala in 1524, forging temporary alliances with local Maya groups while murdering and subjugating their rivals. And then laying waste to them.
And so it went throughout Guatemala as Alvarado sought fortune and renown. The one notable exception was the Rabinal of present-day Baja Verapaz, who survived with their preconquest identity intact and remain one of Guatemala's most traditional groups to this day.
Alvarado moved his base to Santiago de los Caballeros (now called Ciudad Vieja) in 1527, but, shortly after his death in 1541, Ciudad Vieja was destroyed by a flood. The Spanish capital was relocated under the same name to a new site nearby, known today as Antigua.
The Spanish effectively enslaved Guatemala's indigenous people to work what had been their own land for the benefit of the Spanish, just as they did throughout the hemisphere. Refusal to work meant death. The colonists believed themselves omnipotent and behaved accordingly.
Enter the Catholic Church and Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas. Las Casas had been in the Caribbean and Latin America since 1502 and had witnessed firsthand the near complete genocide of the indigenous populations of Cuba and Hispaniola. Horrified by what he had seen, Las Casas managed to convince Carlos V of Spain to enact the New Laws of 1542, which technically ended the system of forced labor. In reality, forced labor continued, but wanton waste of Maya lives ceased. Las Casas and other friars went about converting the Maya to Christianity.
A large portion of the church's conversion success can be attributed to its peaceful approach, the relative respect extended to traditional beliefs, and the education provided in indigenous languages.
By the time thoughts of independence from Spain began stirring among Guatemalans, society was already rigidly stratified. Only the European-born Spaniards had any real power, but the criollos (Guatemalan-born Spaniards) lorded it over the ladinos (of mixed Spanish and Maya blood), who in turn exploited the indigenous population who still remained on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.
Angered at being repeatedly passed over for advancement, Guatemalan criollos successfully rose in revolt in 1821. Independence changed little for Guatemala's indigenous communities, who remained under the control of the church and the landowning elite.
Mexico, which had recently become independent, quickly annexed Guatemala, but in 1823 Guatemala reasserted its independence and led the formation of the United Provinces of Central America (July 1, 1823), along with El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. Their union lasted only until 1840 before breaking up into its constituent states. This era brought prosperity to the criollos, but worsened the lot of the Guatemalan Maya. The end of Spanish rule meant that the crown's few liberal safeguards, which had afforded the Maya a minimal protection, were abandoned. The Maya, though technically and legally free, were enslaved by debt peonage to the big landowners.
The ruling classes split into two camps: the elite conservatives, including the Catholic Church and the large landowners, and the liberals, who had been the first to advocate independence and who opposed the vested interests of the conservatives.
A short succession of liberal leaders ended when unpopular economic policies and a cholera epidemic led to an indigenous uprising that brought a conservative ladino pig farmer, Rafael Carrera, to power. Carrera held power from 1844 to 1865, undoing many liberal reforms and ceding control of Belize to Britain in exchange for construction of a road between Guatemala City and Belize City, a road that was never built.
The liberals returned to power in the 1870s, first under Miguel García Granados, next under Justo Rufino Barrios, a rich, young, coffee-plantation owner who held the title of president, but ruled as a dictator (1873–79). Barrios modernized Guatemala's roads, railways, schools and banking system and favored the burgeoning coffee industry disproportionately. Under Barrios' successors a small group of landowning and commercial families came to control the economy, while foreign companies were given generous concessions, and political opponents were censored, imprisoned or exiled.
Manuel Estrada Cabrera ruled from 1898 to 1920, bringing progress in technical matters, but placing a heavy burden on all but the ruling oligarchy. He fancied himself a bringer of light and culture to a backward land, styling himself the 'Teacher and Protector of Guatemalan Youth.'
In reaction to Cabrera's doublespeak, the Huelga de Dolores (Strike of Sorrows) began around this time. Students from Guatemala City's San Carlos University took to the streets during Lent – wearing hoods to avoid reprisals – to protest against injustice and corruption. The tradition caught on in university towns across the country, culminating with a parade through the main streets on the Friday before Good Friday, a tradition that continues to this day.
Estrada Cabrera was overthrown in 1920 and Guatemala entered a period of instability, ending in 1931 with the election of General Jorge Ubico as president. Ubico insisted on honesty in government, and modernized the country's health and social welfare infrastructure. His reign ended when he was forced into exile in 1944.
Just when it appeared that Guatemala was doomed to a succession of harsh dictators, the elections of 1945 brought a philosopher – Juan José Arévalo – to the presidency. Arévalo, in power from 1945 to 1951, established the nation's social security system, a bureau of indigenous affairs, a modern public health system and liberal labor laws. He also survived 25 coup attempts by conservative military forces.
Arévalo was succeeded by Colonel Jacobo Arbenz, who continued Arévalo's policies, instituting agrarian reforms designed to break up the large estates and foster productivity on small, individually owned farms. He also expropriated vast, unused lands conceded to the United Fruit Company during the Estrada Cabrera and Ubico years. Compensation was paid at the value declared for tax purposes (far below its real value), and Arbenz announced that the lands were to be redistributed to peasants and put into cultivation for food. The announcement set off alarms in Washington, and in 1954 the US, in one of the first documented covert operations by the CIA, orchestrated an invasion from Honduras. Arbenz stepped down, and the land reform never took place.
Arbenz was succeeded by a series of military presidents. More covert (but well documented) support came from the US government, in the form of money and counterinsurgency training. Violence became a staple of political life, land reforms were reversed, voting was made dependent on literacy (disenfranchising around 75% of the population), the secret police force was revived and military repression was common.
In 1960, left-wing guerrilla groups began to form.
Guatemalan industry developed fast, but the social fabric became increasingly stressed as most profits flowed upwards. Labor unions organized, and migration to the cities, especially the capital, produced urban sprawl and slums. A cycle of violent repression and protest took hold and by 1979 Amnesty International estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 people had been killed during the political violence of the 1970s alone.
A severe earthquake in 1976 killed about 22,000 people and left around one million homeless. Most of the aid sent for those in need never reached them.
Of all the unlikely candidates for the Nobel Prize throughout history, a rural indigenous Guatemalan woman would have to be near the top of the list.
Rigoberta Menchú was born in 1959 near Uspantán in the highlands of Quiché department and lived the life of a typical young Maya woman until the late 1970s, when the country's civil war affected her tragically and drove her into the left-wing guerrilla camp. Her father, mother and brother were killed in the Guatemalan military's campaign to eradicate communism in the countryside.
Menchú fled to exile in Mexico, where her story I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala was published and translated throughout the world, bringing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous population to international attention. In 1992 Rigoberta Menchú was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, which provided her and her cause with international stature and support. The Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation (www.frmt.org), which she founded with the US$1.2 million Nobel Prize money, works for conflict resolution, plurality, and human, indigenous and women's rights in Guatemala and internationally.
Guatemalans, especially the Maya, were proud that one of their own had been recognized by the Nobel committee. In the circles of power, however, Menchú's renown was unwelcome, as she was seen as a troublemaker.
Anthropologist David Stoll's book Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (1999) contested the truth of many aspects of Menchú's book, including some central facts. The New York Times claimed that Menchú had received a Nobel Prize for lying, and of course her detractors had a field day.
Menchú took the controversy in her stride, not addressing the specific allegations, and the Nobel Institute made it clear that the prize was given for Menchú's work on behalf of the indigenous, not the content of her book. More than anything, the scandal solidified support for Menchú and her cause, while calling Stoll's motives into question.
In 1994 Menchú returned to Guatemala from exile. Since then her work with the Foundation has continued, alongside efforts to promote greater access to low-cost, generic pharmaceuticals and a stint as a UN goodwill ambassador for the Peace Accords. In 2007 she decided to run for president. The problematic, often fragmented nature of indigenous politics was highlighted when the World Indigenous Summit of that year chose not to support her. Menchú's party won a little over 3% of the popular vote in the presidential elections.
In the early 1980s four disparate guerrilla groups united to form the URNG (the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity) and military suppression of antigovernment elements in the countryside peaked, especially under the presidency of General Efraín Ríos Montt, an Evangelical Christian who came to power by coup in March 1982. Huge numbers of people – mainly indigenous men – from more than 400 villages were murdered in the name of anti-insurgency, stabilization and anticommunism.
It was later estimated that 15,000 civilian deaths occurred as a result of counterinsurgency operations during Ríos Montt's term of office alone, not to mention the estimated 100,000 refugees (again, mostly Maya) who fled to Mexico. The government forced villagers to form Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PACs; Civil Defense Patrols), who were later accused of some of the worst human rights atrocities committed during Ríos Montt's rule.
As the civil war dragged on and both sides committed atrocities, more and more rural people came to feel caught in the crossfire.
In August 1983 Ríos Montt was deposed by General Oscar Humberto Mejía Victores, but the abuses continued. Survivors were herded into remote 'model villages' surrounded by army encampments. The ongoing reports of human rights violations and civilian massacres led the US to cut off military assistance to Guatemala, which in turn resulted in the 1986 election of a civilian president, Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo of the Christian Democratic Party.
There was hope that Cerezo Arévalo's administration would temper the excesses of the powerful elite and the military, and establish a basis for true democracy. But armed conflict festered in remote areas and when Cerezo Arévalo's term ended in 1990, many people wondered whether any real progress had been made.
President Jorge Serrano (1990–93) from the conservative Movimiento de Acción Solidaria (Solidarity Action Movement) reopened a dialogue with the URNG, hoping to bring the decades-long civil war to an end. When the talks collapsed, the mediator from the Catholic Church blamed both sides for intransigence.
Human-rights abuses continued during this period despite the country's return to democratic rule. In one dramatic case in 1990, Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack, who had documented army violence against the rural Maya, was fatally wounded after being stabbed dozens of times. Former head of the Presidential Guard, Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, was found guilty of masterminding the assassination and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment, but went into hiding before he could be arrested.
Serrano's presidency came to depend more on the army for support. In 1993 he tried to seize absolute power, but after a tense few days was forced to flee into exile. Congress elected Ramiro de León Carpio, an outspoken critic of the army's strong-arm tactics, as president, to complete Serrano's term.
President de León's elected successor, Álvaro Arzú of the center-right Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN; National Advancement Party), took office in 1996. Arzú continued negotiations with the URNG and, finally, on December 29, 1996, 'A Firm and Lasting Peace Agreement' was signed. During the 36 years of civil war, an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans had been killed, a million made homeless, and untold thousands had disappeared.
Any hopes for a truly just and democratic society have looked increasingly frayed in the years since 1996. International organizations regularly criticize the state of human rights in the country and Guatemalan human rights campaigners are threatened or simply disappear on a regular basis. The major problems – poverty, illiteracy, lack of education and poor medical facilities (all much more common in rural areas, where the Maya population is concentrated) – remain a long way from being resolved.
The 1999 presidential elections were won by Alfonso Portillo of the conservative Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG). Portillo was seen as a front man for FRG leader, ex-president General Efraín Ríos Montt. At the end of his presidency Portillo fled the country in the face of allegations that he had diverted US$500 million from the treasury to personal and family bank accounts. Having evaded prosecution for years, Portillo was finally charged by the United States for laundering money using US banks, and looks set to be extradited and put on trial there.
Ríos Montt was granted permission by Guatemala's constitutional court to stand in the 2003 elections, despite the fact that the constitution banned presidents who had taken power by coup in the past, as Ríos Montt had in 1982.
In the end Guatemala's voters dealt Ríos Montt a resounding defeat, electing Oscar Berger of the moderately conservative Gran Alianza Nacional (GANA) as president. Berger managed to stay relatively untouched by political scandal, critics saying this was because he didn't really do anything, let alone anything bad.
The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA; TLC or Tratado de Libre Comercio, in Spanish) was ratified by Guatemala in 2006. Supporters claim it frees the country up for greater participation in foreign markets, while detractors state that the agreement is a bad deal for the already disenfranchised rural poor.
Another round of elections was held in late 2007, bringing to power Álvaro Colom of the center-leftist Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE). Colom followed Berger's example of steady, minimalist governance and spearheaded some much-needed improvements to the country's infrastructure. Unfortunately, his entire presidency was dogged by corruption claims, from straight-out vote buying to back-room deals granting contracts to companies who had contributed to his campaign fund.
But probably the most bizarre twist of the Colom presidency happened as he was leaving office. The Guatemalan constitution prohibits members of the president's family from running for the subsequent presidency (supposedly an anti-dictatorship measure), so Colom and his wife filed for divorce in the lead-up to the 2011 elections in an attempt to make her a valid candidate. The Constitutional Court banned her candidature anyway, leaving the door open for hard-line, ex–civil war general Otto Pérez Molina to take office in early 2012.
Pérez Molina's election was always going to be controversial – he was a general in Ríos Montt's army in the period when the worst atrocities occurred, in the regions where they occurred. Guatemalans had grown tired of the growing lawlessness in their country, though, and turned a blind eye to history in the hope that Molina would deliver on his two campaign promises – jobs and security.
Despite some heavy-handed reactions to protesters (the army killed seven and wounded 40 in one incident at an anti-dam and anti-mining protest), Pérez Molina did little to combat real crime, and his early presidency was plagued by vague rumors of corruption in the administration. In April 2015, the UN anti-corruption agency CICIG issued a report and things got a whole lot less vague.
The report claimed several senior members of the Pérez Molina administration were involved in taking bribes from importers in return for reduced customs fees. Within days, mass protests were organized over social media and tens of thousands turned out in downtown Guatemala City. Vice president Roxana Baldetti was the first to go – she resigned in early May, unable to explain how she paid for her US$13 million helicopter, among other things.
In the following months more than 20 officials resigned and many were arrested as the scandal snaked its way to the top. Mass protests continued as more findings were released. Baldetti was arrested in August amid calls for Pérez Molina's impeachment. The president hung on for a few weeks more, then resigned in the face of impending impeachment. He was arrested in early September.
3114 BC
The Maya creation story says that the world was created on August 13 of this year, which corresponds to the first date on the Maya Long Count Calendar.
1100 BC
Proto-Maya settlements begin to appear in the Copán Valley. By 1000 BC settlements on the Guatemalan Pacific coast show early signs of developing a hierarchical society.
c 250 BC
Early Maya cities El Mirador and Kaminaljuyú flourish between 250 BC and 100 AD due to tactical and commercial advantages. Agricultural techniques are refined as the trade in obsidian and jade booms.
AD 230
El Mirador begins to decline in importance. King Yax Ehb’ Xooc of Tikal establishes the dynasty that will make Tikal the dominant city of the southern Maya world.
682
King Moon Double Comb, or Lord Chocolate, ascends Tikal's throne and begins remodeling and reconstructing Tikal's grand plazas and temples that had been destroyed by Caracol and Calakmul.
900
The collapse of Classic Maya civilization begins, and the Postclassic era starts. A century-long exodus from Tikal commences, after which the city will never be inhabited again.
c 13th century
Ruthlessly organized Toltec-Maya migrants from southeast Mexico establish kingdoms in Guatemala. Highlands Maya organize into competing kingdoms, establishing language and cultural groupings that survive today.
1523
Spaniard Pedro de Alvarado begins the conquest of Guatemala. Alvarado quickly conquers much of the country, although parts of the highlands hold out for years and El Petén is not subdued for another 170 years.
1527
Alvarado establishes his capital at Santiago de los Caballeros (modern Ciudad Vieja, near Antigua). When he dies in Mexico, 14 years later, his wife decrees the entire city be painted black.
1542
Spain enacts the New Laws, officially banning forced labor in its colonies. Catholic influence becomes more institutionalized and traditional Maya social structures are transformed.
1609–1821
The Captaincy General of Guatemala comprises what are now Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas, with its capital at Antigua, then at Guatemala City.
1697
The Spanish conquest of Guatemala is completed as the island of Tayasal (present-day Flores) – home of the Itza, the last remaining unconquered tribe – is defeated.
1773
Antigua, a jewel in the colonial crown, complete with a university, a printing press, schools, hospitals and churches, is destroyed by an earthquake. The new capital is founded at present-day Guatemala City.
1823–40
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica form the United Provinces of Central America. Liberal reforms are enacted, and vehemently opposed by conservative groups and the Catholic Church.
1838
Much of southwestern Guatemala declares independence, becoming the sixth member of the United Provinces. The new state, called Los Altos, has its capital at Quetzaltenango. It will secede, briefly, in 1844, 1848 and 1849.
1840
Rafael Carrera seizes power and declares Guatemala fully independent and reincorporates Los Altos into Guatemala. He sets about dismantling many of the liberal reforms of the United Provinces.
1870s
Liberal governments modernize Guatemala, but turn indigenous lands over to coffee plantations. European newcomers are given preferential treatment, further disenfranchising the Maya.
1901
President Manuel Estrada Cabrera courts the US-owned United Fruit Company to set up shop in Guatemala. United Fruit soon takes on a dominant role in national politics.
1940s
Bowing to pressure from the US (buyers of 90% of Guatemala's exports at the time), President Jorge Ubico expels German landowners from the country. Their lands are redistributed to political and military allies.
1945–54
Juan José Arévalo, elected with 85% of the popular vote, comes to power, ushering in an era of enlightened, progressive government that is continued by his successor Jacobo Arbenz.
1954
Effecting the country's first serious attempt at land reform, Arbenz appropriates Guatemalan lands of the US-owned United Fruit Company. He is soon deposed in a US-orchestrated coup.
1950s–1960s
Military dictators rule the country, reversing liberal reforms of previous governments. Crackdowns lead to the formation of left-wing guerrilla groups. The civil war begins.
1967
Guatemalan writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias, credited as a pioneer of modernist Latin American literature, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his political novel El Señor Presidente.
1976
Earthquake kills 22,000 in Guatemala. Reconstruction efforts help to consolidate leftist opposition groups, who are met with fierce military reprisals. The Carter administration bans military aid to Guatemala.
1982
Four powerful guerrilla organizations unite to form the URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity). An estimated half a million people actively support the guerrilla movement.
1982–83
State terror against rural indigenous communities peaks during the rule of General Efraín Ríos Montt. Peasants, particularly in the highlands, begin an exodus to Mexico to escape violence from both sides.
1990
The army massacres 13 Tz'utujil Maya (including three children) in Santiago Atitlán. Outraged, the people of Santiago fight back, becoming the first town to succeed in expelling the army by popular demand.
1992
Indigenous rights and peace activist Rigoberta Menchú is awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. Menchú receives the award while living in exile in Mexico, returning to Guatemala two years later.
1996
After nearly a decade of talks, the Peace Accords are signed, bringing to an end the 36-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans died.
1998
The true nature of peace is questioned as Bishop Gerardi, author of a paper blaming the army for the overwhelming amount of civil-war deaths, is found bludgeoned to death in his home.
2000–4
Presidency of Alfonso Portillo of the FRG party, led by Efraín Ríos Montt. Portillo begins by prosecuting those responsible for the death of Bishop Gerardi, but is soon mired in corruption allegations.
2006
Guatemala ratifies CAFTA, a free-trade agreement between the US and Central America. Massive street protests and seemingly endless media discussion have little effect on the final document.
2011
First Lady Sandra Torres announces she will divorce the president in order to run for upcoming elections, or in her words, 'marry the people.' The move is slammed as electoral fraud by the opposition.
Jan 2012
Ex-civil war general Otto Perez Molina takes office as president, having won the election promising a reign of 'mano dura' (iron fist) as a solution to Guatemala's burgeoning crime problems.
Dec 21, 2012
Despite end-of-the-world predictions from non-Mayans, Baktun 13 ends without major incidents and a new Great Cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar begins.
2015
UN anti-corruption agency CICIG publishes report claiming widespread government corruption in relation to customs and imports. Vice president Baldetti and President Pérez Molina resign in August and September respectively following mass protests.
2016
Sandra Morán, the first openly LGBT member of Guatemalan congress is sworn in on the same day as new president and ex-comedian Jimmy Morales, an evangelical Christian who has publicly opposed same-sex marriage.