Washington Post: On gay marriage, more work ahead

The Washington Post

Only a decade ago, the events of recent days would have been unimaginable.

President Obama announced that, instead of attending the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, he would send an official delegation that will conspicuously include openly gay U.S. athletes — a clear protest of Russian discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

New Mexico's Supreme Court declared the state's prohibition of same-sex unions unconstitutional.

Then a federal judge threw out Utah's same-sex marriage ban.

We are coming to the end of a second banner year for gay and lesbian equality. Indeed, after the heady victories of 2012 and 2013, continuing progress might seem as inevitable as it did impossible a few years ago. But further progress can't be taken for granted. LGBT people, and their friends and loved ones, are reaping the rewards of decades of hard work in the face of persistent discrimination. The need for such hard work isn't over.

Six states legalized same-sex marriage this year, bringing the tally to 18 states and the District of Columbia. In four of those states, legislatures were the agents of change. The people or their representatives voting to end discrimination is more likely to result in widespread acceptance than are judicial rulings, no matter how enlightened.

In June, the Supreme Court struck down the most odious parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal benefits to same-sex couples, and the justices ruled against Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex unions in California. The court did not proclaim same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right. But its decisions have informed many other legal proceedings that will likely bring the question before the court again in a couple of years. The Utah case is one of those. Encouraged by the Supreme Court rulings, meanwhile, more and more state and local officials are arguing that same-sex marriage restrictions in their jurisdictions violate the federal Constitution.

Yet, save the late addition of Utah, where the fate of the judicial decree remains uncertain, every state in which same-sex marriage or civil unions are legal voted for President Obama in the past two elections. That's also true of most of the states on gay rights campaigners' target lists for the next few years. Many red states, including North Carolina last year, have enshrined gay marriage bans in their constitutions, a difficult obstacle to overcome.

In other words, it's still unclear whether the wave of equality that has swept from state to state over the past two years is national or regional, bound to crash ineffectually on more conservative parts of the country. The Supreme Court stopped short of declaring same-sex marriage a constitutional right — which is the logical and moral outcome — in large part because a more ambitious ruling might provoke a nasty and counterproductive backlash. As long as the justices feel that way, a nationally consistent right to marriage will probably be elusive, even if more judges, like the one in Utah, choose to be more daring. Meanwhile, Congress has yet to guarantee workplace equality. And countries from Russia to Uganda to India to Australia went backward in their stances on gay rights this year.

We should celebrate that millions of Americans, including President Obama, are "evolving" on this issue. But further progress can't be assumed. In 2014, as in every prior year, the fight for equality will take hard organizing and patient persuasion.