That's insane. That's like saying there were no gay people before 1985, and crediting C. Everett Koop with starting the fight against AIDS. Literally, it's like chronicling gay rights without knowing about Stonewall. Why, exactly, does this creature think Prop. 8 was on the ballot in the first place?

If you're gonna tell the story, tell the legend!

THANK YOU for summing this up so succinctly. This kind of stuff riles me up. I was on CNN in 1988 leading a marriage equality rally at a time when even domestic partnership registries with minimal benefits was considered controversial. While I then stepped back from the issue, I continued to follow it closely in the decades that followed. Ignoring Hawaii and Vermont clearly shows the author was either lazy or had an agenda. (My money's on the former.)

I have to wonder if the idea for this book sprang from the grotesque mythmaking press-whore monster that is HRC. Having worked in the movement during most of the 1990s, I was constantly amazed at their ineffectiveness at all things EXCEPT taking credit for (and raising money off of) other people's work.

Here's the New York Times article based on part of the book:

http://tinyurl.com/lr6vohu

I'll reserve my opinion of the book until I read it. It doesn't come out until Tuesday. Where are Andrew Sullivan's quotes from the book that he's shredding, by the way? Have you read it, Dan?

The NYT article seemed to confirm that Biden's statement lending support to marriage equality was not the White House's idea.

If that's indeed the author's understanding of marriage equality history, she has to be either incredibly stupid or deliberately blind. Marriage equality was being debated and attempts to force local authorities to perform same-sex marriages in the early 1970s, that I know of, and may have been a political consideration even earlier. I worked on marriage equality efforts in the 70s myself. For once, I'd agree with Sullivan.

Anyone who saw the Brady Bunch movie will remember that Hawaii had legal same-sex marriage long before 2008.

Okay, guys, let's wash our dirty jock straps in the public eye some more. After all, what have we got to lose???

Andrew Sullivan nails it with his critique of access journalism. This is what giving up your objectivity creates--ignorance and work that strokes the egos of those that gave you access. History isn't written by the victors, it is written by the toadies of the victors.

You know, I'd really rather we not get into a lot of shrieking finger-pointing. I can't pretend to know the motivations of Jo Becker and Chad Griffin for putting forward this story at this particular time, but Jo Becker is an investigative reporter and I'm much more interested in history being told by academic historians, who deliberate amongst themselves at conferences and in journals, and gradually flesh out the record that will stand the test of time. This book is not history; it will have its flash of publicity and then sink back into the swamp.

The activists on this stage would be better served by voicing their objections, concurrence, or footnotes calmly for the record and then going back to doing what they do best.

@4 I've criticized HRC in the past, but I was actually quite impressed by their contributions to the R-74 battle in Washington. Most of the volunteer coordinators I met were being paid by HRC. I believe they did a lot for us here.

Overall though I'd rather support a local organization like Washington United for Marriage than a national organization.

Are you excluding "domestic partnerships" from the ME debate.

Like many people, I had assumed that most states had passed or were passing domestic partnership laws (like WA State) and that the whole issue was a done deal.

I guess I'm cynical, but the shift from domestic partnership to "Marriage Equality" seems like a political one. As much a product of the Republicans of 2004 as the Democrats of 2008. A way to rile up the true believers, offer a differentiating point, get more voters in (and most importantly, get people to make campaign contributions).

Along this logic, and with even Arizona going to the gay side, the principal problem for Democrats in 2014 and 2016 is going to be what I term the End of Peak Bogeymen.

MA got full marriage equality in 2004. Becker is a goddamn idiot if he thinks 2008 was when it all began.

@12 Are you serious, you thought most states had passed or were passing domestic partnership laws? Here is the reality: https://www.aclu.org/maps/same-sex-relat…

Those opposed to ME were generally opposed to DP as well, and those people didn't want to seriously offer DP or CU as a compromise until the pro-ME side started winning the debate, and the opposition panicked.

Also ME in 2008 was not an issue the Dems were pushing.

To your last point, are you saying the pro-ME side being the winning side is a problem for the Dems?! I see no other way to interpret that statement, so I would recommend a future in the pundit class for you, I think you'd fit right in at CNN or Fox.

Hell's afire! My husband and I had already been married in Canada before the 2008 election, and when we had our committment ceremony in my home town in June of 2008 (also before the election), we asked that people donate to Freedom to Marry in lieu of giving gifts.

The Marriage Equality Movement was not spontaneously generated the night that Prop 8 passed, and anyone who makes that argument is just plain ignorant.

If anyone is the Rosa Parks of the Marriage Equality movement, my nomination would be Gavin Newsome, who generated national awareness of the issue by acting in civil disobedience when he announced in 2004 that San Francisco would perform same sex marriages.

I'd love to have an extended conversation about this because I think there's much to reflect on even at this ~one-third-of-the-way point in the marriage-equality fight. I remember donating to the HRC back in the nineties and then feeling embarrassed because they seemed more into schmoozing than ACTing UP, and I remember Chad Griffin's ascendance being hailed as the end of the lap-dog or house-faggot phase, the Log Cabin/GOProuders of the liberal side. Still, that little "=" bumper sticker was one of the first signs of community in the rural conservative backwaters, well before rainbow decals and leather-pride flags.

SRotU, you are too cynical, though I'm aware that you favor marriage equality from a libertarian angle. Many, many gays, myself included, traveled a path on our own from "Why insist on marriage when it upsets so many people? Why not just decriminalize the sex acts that straights do too but won't admit and prosecute us over?" to "I just want the same legal rights and protections" to "Separate but equal is, and has always been, unacceptable." The best explanation for the greatest number of people who made this journey is internalized homophobia—feeling at some level that we're abnormal or loathsome or undeserving. There are, in fact, still many gay people today who don't want marriage equality and specifically disavow internalized homophobia; they say that gays are fundamentally different creatures and that it's somehow "selling out" to adopt any of the trappings of mainstream heterosexuality. I don't think the political-manipulation argument has anything going for it other than wishful thinking. The transformation was largely self-contained, self-driven, and included a healthy dose of skepticism.

Further to my point @10, I risk indulging in stereotypes myself, but gays can be shallow and hedonistic and unappreciative of the efforts that have brought us to this point. We have the history of oppression and the spectre of AIDS to explain some of that away—the It Gets Better Project and the clichéd journey from a closeted small-town existence to living large in the nearest (or farthest) Big City provide ample evidence in this vein—but I would encourage everyone to ponder, however briefly, how we've gotten where we are, especially when we see ugly public disputes about who should get the credit or the blame.

History is always important. Several years ago I visited the websites of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and OutHistory to find that both were shabby-looking, dated, slow, and with broken links. Today I find them considerably improved, and they'll both be getting donations from me this year. Both provide opportunities to tell your stories (look for your hometown or favorite Big City on OutHistory), and you should think about doing so.

Nice, rob @17.

The path to marriage equality started a long time ago, and has moved in fits and starts. It has many figures that influenced the battle in many nuanced ways. It didn't just happen suddenly one day in 2008. Different people "evolved" in different ways and at different times. There have been loud, inflammatory crusaders (hi Dan!). There have been quiet PFLAG activists (hi Mom!). There have been many, many of us who have simply come out, that have influenced the people around us to recognize our basic humanity.

What Becker may be seeing is simply the tipping point. The point at which it became inevitable that this country is on a path toward marriage equality. That is about the time when the straights-only marriage amendments started losing. About the time when polling numbers started to turn in our favor, at least in some places. But all of these elements were years, even decades in the making, and did not start one night in 2008.

HRC- human rights champagne ... . They are a celebrity driven nonsense group and they are about as diverse as a Methodist church in Iowa.
They are good for hosting parties and raising money. It has always been the fags, queers, drag queens, dykes. They were hiding in the closet jerking off to old gladiator movies while the rest of them were out in the streets fighting. Fuck them... they were to pretty to get their hands soiled now they want to come in and claim credit...fuck 'em.

As much as I cannot stand the concept of an Andrew Sullivan, I have to give him props for this. Kudos to you, Andrew. Will you stop being a fucking Republican now? Yeah, I thought not.

There's also this ... How goddam fabulous! is it to be arguing over who gets credit for making marriage equality a real thing and getting real-er all the time?
For those of us who never imagined such a possible thing in our lifetimes it's a fucking miracle unfolding before our eyes.

I didn't realize the movement started in 2008.

I guess I must have dreamed about volunteering against Prop 22 in CA in 2000 and Measure 36 in OR in 2004.

@7 No Hawaii only got legal marriage equality last year.

I think the only productive thing that HRC has done is sell tee-shirts and "=" bumper stickers.

@20,

Don't give Sullivan too much credit. If the book had said that the fight for marriage equality began and ended with Sullivan, his only comment would have been that it was like history being written with lightning.

@20. Andrew isn't a Republican. He dumped them back in 2003 but I guess you didn't get the memo. Like me, and a lot of Dan fanboys, he's still a conservative. That may leave a bad taste in your mouth to know you're surrounded all the time by conservatives who, you know, aren't monsters. But seeing as how it 2014, it's probably a good time for you to find out about us.

You're welcome.

@16, local to me it was Michael Hendricks who brought a suit against the provincial government in 2001, the same year the first (modern, legal) same-sex marriage was performed in the Netherlands. He and his husband were legally married in 2004.

Speaking of re-writing history - plenty of black folks before Rosa Parks got their asses handed to them for behavior that was similar to hers. Not only that, referring to her actions as giving, "history's arc... a quick shove," is an enormous stretch that ignores the decades of civil rights struggles that preceded her actions.

"Girls, girls....you're ALL pretty." Is this part of a publicity campaign to promote Becker's book? Because if there were any chance that I might've overlooked it before, I'm goddamned sure gonna read it now. The shrill, shrieking hysteria would be hilarious, if it weren't so sickeningly petty, and if, in fact, the battle for equality were over. #BiggerFishToFry

Sullivan and Savage sound like Alan Keyes and Jesse Jackson falsely attacking Obama as an interloper trying to hijack credit for the Civil Rights movement, when in fact they were merely jealous of Obama's success. In the same way that the election of the first African American POTUS represents an inflection point in the Civil Rights struggle, Becker's book documents an inflection point in the Equality struggle, providing a snapshot of some (not all) of the most prominent players at a key moment when Equality started racking up victories (legal, political, public support) instead of crushing losses. It doesn't even pretend to be a comprehensive, exhaustive historical accounting of the Gay Rights movement. any more than an accounting of Obama's victory in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election would be a complete history of the struggle for Civil Rights. Becker’s account is a book-length piece of long long-form journalism. Nothing more, nothing less. Sullivan is just angry that he didn’t get any burn.

What's clear to me is that Sullivan feels outrageously slighted at not having been given a starring role in Becker's account. One might speculate that Sullivan's indy blog experiment is failing, and that in a frantic, last-ditch effort for survival, he is diving headfirst into any controversy he can gin up by taking the loudest, most outrageous, most contrarian positions against contemporary mainstream LGBT equality activists and by attacking those who've been more successful recently at achieving gay rights victories than Sullivan has ever been. Sullivan desperately craves attention and approval from some audience. Any audience.

What's less clear is why Dan Savage feels the need to swing from Sullivan's toxic nutsack--did you feel slighted too, Dan? Do you think that your role as sex columnist and Santorum-eye-gouger merits bigger mention in the history of the equality movement?

Sullivan is a pathetic figure of late, revealing his own insecurities, sense of personal failure and waning relevance as a voice in the LGBT movement. And Dan Savage has often been prone to hair-trigger, over-the-top over-reactions for the sake of shock value. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that two such attention whores would eventually "hook up", but the fact that they do so in plain public view is both nauseating and embarrassing. It's like watching two old tarts make out in the gutter during a Mardi Gras parade. Just..go get a room somewhere out of sight, willya?

All the shrieking morons going public might want to think about reading the book. It is specifically, and exclusively, about Prop 8 and the politics surrounding it. The book does not claim to be a history of the entire same sex marriage movement. New rule: the louder Andrew Sullivan shrieks, the more wrong he is, on any given day and on any given issue.

"Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality" is not a book about Prop 8, even if it wants to claim that it is.