The Movement Today
Marriage was and continues to be the ultimate gay rights issue at hand. In 2003, the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas was monumental in its reversal of the legendarily wrong Bowers v. Hardwick case. The 2003 decision finally struck down the Texas sodomy law, which criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults.
Today, same sex marriage is still illegal. To get around this, Vermont, in 2004, created the “civil union” which gave gay couples all the benefits of marriage without the title. Later the same year, the Massachusetts high court ruled that couples had the right to marry under state constitution. Also in the same year, President Bush proposed an amendment to bar same sex marriages. However, it was quickly shot down without enough votes from Congress. If passed, this would have been the only constitutional amendment that discriminated against a certain group. There are have been improvements in the political world still. By mid-2007, there were 440 openly gay public officials in 43 states.
In New York, Governor Patterson, after a little over a year in office, is changing the stakes when it comes to same-sex mariage in New York. In May 2008, the governor informed state agencies that they were required to recognize same sex marriages from other jurisdictions for employee benefit purposes. Some referred to this decision as “his first major blunder. The governor is known to have called same-sex marriage as “beautiful.” In April, it was announced that Governor Patterson will propose legislation to legalize same-same marriage in the state of New York.