I just re-read the post that Savage wrote the day the Supreme Court came out in favor of marriage equality and re-remembered that day and now I’m all emotional: “I never thought this day would come—not in my lifetime. Going to go kiss the husband now,” Dan wrote. (Eyes flooding a little bit. Chest swelling. Deep breaths. Okay. Okay. Coming back to the world now…)
Do you remember just how quickly public option shifted on the issue of marriage equality? Polls were analyzed, graphs were graphed, and cartoons were drawn. In less than 20 years we went from nope to yassss. While it’s true that Obama used the bully pulpit and the courts to help affect that change on the national level, this focus on the president slightly obscures how hard and how long LGBTQ activists worked to affect such change in him, in his administration, and in the culture at large.
This fact isn’t lost on Kerry Eleveld, who covered Obama for The Advocate for several years. Remember when Obama was against gay marriage on religious grounds? Eleveld does. Remember when he started sort of hinting that maybe he’d fully embrace marriage equality? Eleveld does. Remember when nobody knew what Obama was going to do? When, in the eyes of many, political expediency seemed more important for him than equality? Eleveld remembers that, too.
She brings to her work a kind of calm intelligence and an incredible persistence, both of which are on display when she’s doing things like grilling former white house press secretary Robert Gibbs on DADT. You can see it in her eyes. She’s got that journalist gaze that peers into your soul and makes you tell the truth or else you’ll feel like she’ll crawl inside you and RIP IT OUT OF YOUR STOMACH.
In any case, Tonight at Town Hall, Eleveld will read from her book, Don’t Tell Me to Wait: How the Fight for Gay Rights Changed America and Transformed Obama’s Presidency, wherein she lays out the specific ways LGBTQ activists directly contributed to Obama’s “evolving” stance on the issue of marriage equality.
Go. Listen. Remember. Discuss. And, of course, talk about the work that’s left to do.
