Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Reflections on the DOMA decision

I don't remember when DOMA was passed; it's not one of those etched-into-my-memory-forever moments. But I do remember the debate leading up to it. I graduated high school in June 1996, and DOMA was signed a few months later. During my senior year psychology class, we were asked to debate whether gay people should be allowed to adopt children. In a class of 30, I was the only person who said yes. The gay students in my class were too afraid of being outed to speak up. I am, almost sadly, very heterosexual and therefore had no such fears. I also don't care if people think I am gay. 

And of course, that is what happened. After a robust (and, obviously, amazing) defense, someone said I must be gay. I replied - and apparently rightly so - that if I were, there's no way I would have been willing to speak up on this issue. I would have been so afraid of what was being said, I'd have just remained quiet. When the class was sent away, one of my classmates came out to our teacher. It would take her a few more years to come out to me but when she did she reminded me of this story.

The freedom that comes when you're unafraid of discrimination can be a powerful one, if it's channeled correctly.

It's easy to look back to that day, though, and say "I also don't care if people think I am gay." In truth, in 1996, being gay wasn't just a sin in the eyes of some Americans. It was a justifiable reason for discrimination in the eyes of most Americans. My parents, who were my first teachers of equality and who have each been powerful voices for the underprivileged and voiceless, had always encouraged me to speak my mind and to fight for fairness. They taught me the lessons of Martin Luther King, Jr., and yet on the issue of gay rights, they feared my outspokenness would lead people to discriminate against me. There was a clear fear that by associating with gay rights, I would be assumed to be gay. If that were the case, I risked being ostracized. Not by my parents, who made it clear they would love me no matter what, but by pretty much everyone else in my life.

In law school I was taught the same thing. People encouraged me to leave off my CV both the Christian Legal Society, of which I was co-President as a 2L, and Out & Allies, of which I was a member (admittedly, not very active) for all three years. Having both on my CV would make no sense to anyone, I was told, and choosing one or the other would inevitably offend someone who wouldn't give me an interview because I was too conservative or too liberal. If I actually was gay, perhaps I would want to signal that so I didn't end up at a place where I had to answer too many questions, but as I wasn't gay, there was no point to it. While I didn't listen to my parents in high school, I did cave to the pressure in law school and chose to leave off all extracurricular activities that weren't a journal or Honor Council.

Fear can quell even the outspoken, if it isn't forcefully rebuked.

I failed myself back then. 

Today's decision on DOMA will not change my life in any meaningful, personal way. I will not suddenly have a marriage recognized on next year's taxes. I will not be entitled to bring my spouse in from overseas. Or have my spouse recognized as a dependent for my federal health care. In my extended family, there is still not a single out person, so I won't even have someone extra joining my family. The most personal that this gets for me right now is that I won't feel guilty when I do eventually marry. And I'll likely have a lot more weddings to attend in the near-ish future, both for my gay friends and for the straight ones who have vowed not to marry until gay people could. (This does actually mean more presents to buy for other people, and less money for presents for myself, so I'm feeling pretty self-sacrificial in my joy today.) [The last part of that parenthetical was sarcasm, by the way.]

Yet, today, as my news feed filled with pink equal signs - for the second time this year, and with people who sat in my senior year psychology class joining the cause - I felt an intense sense of pride at what the Supreme Court did today, and at what it means for my lifetime. Because while my life will not change, my lifetime has become something more. When I am old and grayer than I am, I will tell my grandchildren about how in my lifetime, I saw people move from a position of hate and exclusion to a position of love and acceptance. I saw the fear lose the war, even if it sometimes still wins a battle.

Like "Don't Ask Don't Tell," DOMA was a product of the time in which we were living.  It was a time filled with fear.  A time to fear discrimination if you were gay, a time of fear of those you didn't understand if you weren't.  In less than twenty years, though, the balance shifted. And it shifted so heavily that a group of 5 Justices whose average age is 68 years old felt it untenable to treat homosexual people differently than heterosexual people. 

If fear was not still tangible, we would not have as many children committing suicide because they were bullied on the basis of sexual orientation.  But the institutional acceptance of fear is being chipped away. I think back to how black school children were treated in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education, and know that bullying based on sexual orientation will be socially - and possibly legally - unacceptable in my nephew's classrooms. That is what my lifetime now means. 

The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Yet, if we're measuring the moral arc of the universe - and not just the US - there is still a lot more bending that needs to be done. I can't help but think of my friends who fight for LGBT rights in other countries. The conversations that have been had, the trials that have been fought, the fear that still permeates their daily lives.  Fear of persecution; arrest; death. Fear that their family will reject them, either for being gay or for being supportive of gay rights. 

It is a fear I have never known. But it's one I look forward to being defeated. 

In. My. Lifetime.