Following are remarks from the keynote address by Delaware Governor Jack Markell at the International Equality Forum dinner in Philadelphia on April 30.
The State of LGBT Equality
Thank you. It is nice to see so many good friends here, so many friends we have made during this long, long march towards true equality.
What this dinner, what this week, makes clear each year is that no matter what is thrown at us, what is placed in our path—what lies or labels, bullying or ballot measures some may try to use to slow our progress—this march moves one way and one way only and that…is…forward.
And each year, as we add new friends and allies, we find as well new heroes, new champions. Tonight is their night as well.
On my desk, in my office, is one of my favorite photos—it’s of a friend and I sharing a laugh. A friend who committed her life early on to raising her own voice to expand freedom, equality, and liberty, both economic and social.
That friend is Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and she is alive today to fight on because of that brave college student we are so lucky to know—Daniel Hernandez. Dan—you are a hero.
And while your particular act of selflessness and bravery serves as an inspiration, the fact is that courage under fire and answering the call to service is nothing new for gays and lesbians in America and abroad. In what most of us have known for years, but it may have come as a shock to some who most vigorously claim equality as their unique and personal provenance, to those for whom freedom or liberty may be universal values but apparently are not meant to be universally shared.
Congress made clear that gays and lesbians can be, will be…and have been soldiers, sailors, airmen and women in our military.
They have fought and have been willing to die—have died, have made that supreme sacrifice—because of their great love for this, our great nation, even while the laws governing this nation forbade them from acknowledging who their great loves might be in their own individual lives.
No more. This year, the march for equality helped eliminate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The soldier that helped lead that march was Lieutenant and former West Point cadet Dan Choi and he is here as well.
And the Congressman who led the charge on Capitol Hill is here as well. He was a colleague of my friend Gabby Giffords, and she was always so impressed by his own service in the War in Iraq.
He, like she, knows that the true purpose of being elected is not to get re-elected but to use the time and talent you have to make a difference while you can.
That Congressman is Patrick Murphy and I want each of us to commit tonight to ensuring his future remains bright.
I’m reminded tonight of another veteran—someone who volunteered for duty in the late 60s knowing that doing so could put him directly in the line of fire.
Many decades after his military service, after raising a family and putting kids through college, he was living and working in New Jersey and had started considering where he might move when he retired.
His son lived in Delaware and was making the case that not only were our taxes so much lower—by the way, that’s a point I’d like to make sure you leave with—but that there could very well be grandkids in the near future he’d probably want to be in Delaware to see.
But that father, at first, rejected the idea outright. Because, as a gay man, he took a look at our state laws and did not like what he saw.
“Dad,” the son said. “Why don’t you come to Delaware?”
And the father said—“It’s pretty clear they don’t want me there…. Well, maybe they want me to vacation in Rehoboth. But certainly not to live.”
And it fell to the son to say—“Delaware does, dad. Our laws may not have caught up with the times or the values of our neighbors, but there are people fighting to make that change happen.”
See, until 2009, which was the year I was sworn in, it was actually legal in Delaware to fire somebody because of their sexual orientation. To deny them housing… to discriminate, based on who somebody loved.
But there was a core group who made the case each and every year for over a decade to our legislature that we could honor the founding ideas of our state and our nation—freedom, equality, opportunity—best by moving forward, not backwards.
Many from that core group are here tonight—it’s the leaders of Equality Delaware—Lisa, Mark, Mitch, John, Larry, Richard, Steve, Charles, Drew…can we thank them?
This fight was by no means easy. In fact, the same time the anti-discrimination bill was being heard, other legislators were not only fighting it, but were moving forward with anti-gay amendments to our constitution.
It was a fight that veered between anger and absurdity including the anti-gay activists who said that we who supported equality were condemning ourselves for eternity….
But these debates are not a joke, they’re not a liturgical exercise—this is real life—real jobs and real risk for men and women across the state.
Because the march for equality goes forward, and not back—that constitutional amendment was defeated and that anti-discrimination bill was passed.
And, while that was progress, it was clear that the anti-discrimination bill still failed to provide critical protections to the bedrock of our society—our families.
I’m thinking specifically of a Delaware family that had two moms—Lacey and Charlene. They’d been together for years, and were raising a child they’d adopted from Kazakhstan.
Or, more clearly, Lacey adopted her there, because that country would not allow two women to adopt.
Before they got around to finishing the adoption process here, to make Charlene the legal mom as well, Lacey left with the child and made clear that Charlene had no legal right to ever see her daughter again.
The courts agreed.
Charlene was devastated.
She knew that no matter how many diapers she’d changed, how many tears she’d wiped away, or bedtime stories she’d read—how many school lunches packed or homework problems helped—no matter how much that daughter loved her mom and how much that mom lived for her child, according to Delaware law, Charlene would not be recognized as the child’s mother and could be denied visitation.
Because, even after the civil rights bill passed, de facto parenting was not the same thing in the eyes of the law.
That same great group of Delawareans sprung into action and mobilized support for additional legislation. We signed into law a de facto parenting bill that recognizes the rights of non-biological parents—and Charlene went immediately back to court and won the right to be back in her child’s life.
And then, with those two laws passed—the anti-discrimination bill and the de facto parenting bill—the strangest thing happened.
Or, more importantly, didn’t happen.
All the hyperbole, the damnation or ruination of Delaware, the sky that would fall or the businesses that would boycott if we started to actually deliver on the promise of equality—none of that came to pass—to some people’s actual surprise.
And equality kept marching forward.
Because we realized that we had to go farther.
A few months ago, there was a candlelight vigil attended by hundreds of Delawareans who had come to mourn the loss of that young life at Rutgers, Tyler Clementi.
It was a moment for heartbreak—to hear the story of so much potential wasted, so much thrown away, so much anguish focused so fully on one person that suicide seemed to him the easier choice than having to live with hatred directed at him because of his sexual orientation.
More heartbreaking even, is how that scenario happens again and again, across the country. But that night, so many Delawareans stepped up and shared their own stories—stories of hope, stories of promise, stories of how far our neighbors and our state have come.
How we can say to young people like that college student—live a life of accomplishment? Build a business, and a family? Embrace the opportunities before you because that hatred you’re facing has no place here?
It was a broad group that spanned both ideologies and generations, and made very, very clear that the state needed to send a very different message to potential Tyler Clementi’s out there in our communities.
That we needed to say: if you’ve committed yourself to someone, and you’ve made that pledge to spend your life together in partnership, when life or death decisions come, we will respect your right to make those decisions together.
Because, really, how can the state, in good conscience, say to someone—“you have dedicated your life to someone for years. Your partner trusts you to make their medical decisions if they become incapacitated and don’t have a living will but we, the state, do not?”
How can the state say to a child that had been raised since birth in a home of love, that because both of those parents happen to be men or women that if the parent who was the legal guardian dies, you lose the legal rights and protections to be raised by the other? That, when your world has been torn apart, the law may tear it further?
How can we say—“Your love is less valid or deserving, because you chose to commit your love and your life to someone of the same gender?”
We couldn’t.
We can’t.
And we never, ever will again.
On May 11, at the Queen Theatre’s World Café Live in Wilmington I will be signing Delaware’s Civil Union bill into law.
And on January 1, 2012, the question in Delaware will no longer be “Why is the state refusing to recognize my family as equal to another because of who I’ve chosen as my partner?”
The question instead is—“Who gets to be first in line to make that recognition real?”
Who gets to say, looking with love at the partner across from them, that even though it took the state so much time to get here—and so many states still have so far to go—we have made it here together.
We are celebrating together.
I know that most of the couples committing themselves with the help of this law have done so in other forms already.
Like Equality Delaware’s Lisa Goodman and her partner Drew Fennell—who in the ten years since their own commitment ceremony have celebrated all the great things that come with having four children in the house: birthdays, graduations, athletic, and academic achievements.
Who’ve nursed each other through serious illness, and been together for the death of Lisa’s father. Who’ve moved kids into college dorms and first apartments, and helped Lisa’s mom move into a new home after Lisa’s dad died. Who’ve had times of incredible joy and incredible sadness.
As Drew said, “Our family felt solid and good to me, and I looked forward to civil unions passing as a way to further protect my family. What has surprised me is how deeply this has touched my heart, and how much it means to live in a place where my family is equal in the eyes of the law.”
To all of you here who welcomed me years ago into this triumphant march forward for Equality…It’s time to celebrate!