Since 2004, I’ve officiated over 250 LGBTQ+ couples, including Mayor Denise Simmons’s nuptials. When interviewed for this 20th anniversary, I was asked to show photos. I had to sort them into three piles as I’ve done with heterosexual couples, highlighting we are like everyone else: deceased, divorced, and still together.
Looking back at advances since 2004, such as hate crime laws, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA, the legalization of marriage equality, same-sex adoption, and anti-homophobic bullying becoming a national concern, among a few, the LGBTQ+ community has come a long way since the first Pride marches.
When you reside at the intersections of multiple identities, as I do, the 20th anniversary of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts is also the 70th anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education. This ruling upended this country’s separate but equal doctrine, adopted in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896.
However, victory comes with backlash.
On this year’s anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, African American and Latinx American students continue to attend not only segregated schools - whether here in Boston or across the nation. Also, they overwhelmingly attend high-poverty urban ones with metal detectors. Sadly, not only has policing while schooling doubled since 2001 to the present day, but so has the school-to-prison pipeline.
As for us, LGBTQ+ Americans, bigotry works in this political climate.
-- Irene Monroe, "20 Years of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts" (THE BLACK COMMENTATOR).