How Massachusetts ignited the US marriage-equality fight
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Massachusetts wasn't just the first state to win over the courts on same-sex marriage. It was the first to show society that gay couples were everywhere — and they were ready to defend their right to be treated like any other American family.
Why it matters: Twenty years after the first gay marriages, there's real fear among some that under a second Trump administration, the Supreme Court could eventually roll back the right to wed.
- Revisiting history might help mobilize for the future.
How it happened: Vermont's adoption of civil unions marked a long-awaited victory for gay couples, but Mary Bonauto, an attorney at GLAD, was determined to win full marriage equality in Massachusetts.
- Representing seven couples from across the state, Bonauto litigated the landmark case, Goodridge et al v. Department of Public Health.
- Couples married in droves, some lining up around midnight May 17, 2004. Bonauto remembers people inviting family from out-of-state to celebrate the occasion.
The milestone left a powerful impression on people nationwide.
- "I remember meeting tons of people saying that our families are coming in from Nebraska," says Bonauto. "There was a way in which people around the country were seeing what this looked like, too, even though there weren't marriages happening in those states."
Over the next decade, the fight played out across the country — in courts, at the ballot, and in statehouses.
- While some states initially pressed on with same-sex marriage bans, LGBTQ+ families and advocates mobilized to obtain the right to wed in Iowa, Washington, Maine and other states after seeing it happen in Massachusetts.
What they're saying: The Goodridge decision "lit the way," says Camilla Taylor, senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal, who litigated Iowa's landmark case. And the momentum of that 2009 decision — the first in the Midwest — "allowed people to think that dream could come true for them, even if they didn't live in traditionally progressive urban centers on the coasts."
The big picture: By 2015, when the Supreme Court struck down same-sex marriage bans, state and federal courts had handed down dozens of similar rulings in most states.
The latest: Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion in the Dobbs ruling said the court "should reconsider" past rulings on birth control and same-sex marriage.
- Legally, Bonauto tells Axios, it would be "outrageous" for the courts to overturn marriage equality, considering the precedents around liberty and autonomy.
- But she says she won't rule it out and won't be complacent: "I do believe engagement in the political process is imperative for all of us. We have to be involved across the board to defend our rights."