As an openly gay member of Washington's city council, it's hard for David Catania to overstate the national importance of last week's council vote to introduce gay marriage in the nation's capital. "This is going to be seen as a watershed moment in marriage equality in this country," says Catania, who sponsored the bill, which Mayor Adrian Fenty has pledged to sign into law. "It's the mainstreaming of LGBT couples who are working in Congress and the White House."
More than a national tipping point for what the gay rights movement calls marriage equality, however, the D.C. council's vote may be a silver lining amid a string of major setbacks. Last month, Maine voters, despite a vigorous campaign by national gay rights groups, repealed a law that legalized gay marriage there. Last week, the New York State Senate voted down a gay marriage bill that activists on both sides of the issue had expected to become law. And the endeavor to legalize gay marriage this year in New Jersey, a deep-blue state that has already legalized gay civil unions, appears to be foundering.
"Anytime you have social progress, it comes in a series of fits and starts," says Catania. "The District vote is providing momentum at a time when we've had a few setbacks. We're keeping the flame lit."
Conservative Christian activists, meanwhile, remain optimistic about their efforts to stop gay marriage nationwide even after their defeat in Washington. They note that voters have rejected gay marriage whenever the issue has appeared on the ballot, which has happened in 31 states (Arizona voters rejected a gay marriage ban in 2006 but adopted one last year). Thirty states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, and more than a dozen others have defense-of-marriage laws preventing gay marriage. "What is happening in D.C. shows that the council is out of touch," says Harry Jackson, a Maryland megachurch pastor who led the movement to oppose gay marriage in the District. "A privileged minority is imposing its will on the majority."
Jackson wants to put the gay marriage issue to D.C. voters in a ballot initiative, but a District human-rights law and Washington's liberal board of elections give his effort long odds. Congress could block the law, but its Democratic leadership is unlikely to do so. The city council must vote on the measure a second time before it's sent to the mayor's desk, but the 11-to-2 vote makes passage likely. The votes of two of Washington's African-American council members, including former Mayor Marion Barry, against gay marriage were a reminder that racial minorities have become a key part of the coalition opposing gay marriage.
Since Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, via a state supreme court decision, four states have followed suit, all acting since October 2008. A Pew poll this October found that support for gay civil unions has risen significantly in recent years, to 57 percent, but that just 39 percent of Americans back gay marriage, roughly the same proportion as in 2003. Gay rights activists note that polls show less opposition to gay marriage among young people. "The momentum is on our side," says Sultan Shakir, East Coast field director for the Human Rights Campaign. Maybe in the long term. For now, though, Washington's move to allow gay marriage appears to be an exception to the rule.
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