The 2005 Decision To Go Forward With The Fight For Marriage Equality

“[W]e can achieve marriage for same-sex couples nationwide in 15 to 25 years,” the leaders of the LGBT movement declared on June 21, 2005 — a decade ago to the day. The decision followed big losses in November 2004.

















A scene from San Francisco on April 3, 2004.


Susan Ragan / ASSOCIATED PRESS














WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of 11 states passing constitutional amendments in November 2004 banning same-sex couples from marrying, the leaders of ten LGBT organizations met in New Jersey to discuss what should happen next.

It was May 2005 and only one state — Massachusetts — had legalized same-sex couples' marriages. Reeling from losses in more than a dozen states, the movement to expand marriage equality was on the defensive, trying to preserve their victory in Massachusetts and fend off an expected "anti-gay-relationship initiative" in California.

On June 21, 2005 — one decade ago to the day — the group published a document titled, "Winning Marriage: What We Need to Do." While late versions of this plan have been publicized, this statement — agreed upon by 10 groups at a time when the future of the marriage equality fight was in real question — is a "concept paper" that formed the basis of much of the work that followed. Never before published, a copy of the full statement was provided to News.

The document, which represented a compromise among the leading LGBT groups, outlined a recommitment to go forward with the fight for marriage equality. And it came with a strategy and a timetable — 15 to 25 years — that, in retrospect, looks modest.

But a decade ago, there was not unanimity, even among the LGBT leaders who participated, on the wisdom of pursuing marriage rights for same-sex couples. There is a three-paragraph addendum included in the statement addressing the "critical assumption" of why the fight for marriage equality was the path forward.

"Many people in the LGBT community would have preferred not to have made marriage a leading issue now. Many would have preferred to have addressed the legal and social recognition of same-sex couples with different tactics and/or with different conceptual models," the document stated. "Some members of the working group that drafted this concept paper are among those people."

The group — which included key marriage equality movement leaders like Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders's Mary Bonauto — concluded, "There is no way that gay people can be full participants in American life as long as society and the law treat our relationships as if they were inferior or as if they did not exist."

In addition to Bonauto — who argued for marriage equality at the Supreme Court this April — and Wolfson, leaders from the Human Rights Campaign, Task Force, Lambda Legal, ACLU, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality Federation, National Black Justice Coalition, and Basic Rights Oregon participated in the New Jersey meeting and preparation of the "Winning Marriage" statement.

"[O]ur opponents have already seen the possibilities and the dangers of this moment," the statement laid out. "We must give this everything we've got, and we must do it now." The document was blunt, declaring, "we cannot stop our opponents, if we simply continue doing what we are doing now."

The key goal for the movement, mentioned repeatedly throughout the document, was moving public opinion.

"Only with widespread public acceptance will the Supreme Court and/or Congress be ready to take marriage nationwide," the document stated. Even in the face of the losses in the prior election — and with the talk of a Federal Marriage Amendment in the air — the document boldly declared: "Winning the public cannot be something that is deferred to some more convenient time down the road."

The group laid out a "10/10/10/20" strategy — winning marriage in 10 states, civil unions in another 10, domestic partnership benefits in another 10, and "whittling away" at the final 20 states.

The June 2005 timeline for this was 15 to 20 years — five to ten years from now.




















The 10/10/10/20 Plan





















The document laid out a plan that involved "[p]reserving marriage in Massachusetts" and "[d]efeating the expected anti-gay-relationship initiative(s) in California."

"If 30 or 35 states pass constitutional amendments, we will likely have to repeal a significant number of them before we can turn to the federal government to address holdouts," the document reads.

Massachusetts maintained marriage equality, but after a multi-year fight, California passed its marriage amendment, Proposition 8, in 2008.

When North Carolina passed its marriage amendment in May 2012, it became the 30th state to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying. None of those amendments have been repealed in a popular vote.

Despite setbacks, there was success on the fourth "short-term goal" highlighted by the group: Add 2 or 3 states to the marriage equality column in "4 to 5 years." Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, DC all had marriage equality by the start of 2010.

The document laid out other goals that were not met, including a warning that, in addition to moving public opinion, the movement must "lose as few court cases as possible." Court losses in New York, Washington, and Maryland would soon follow, as well as a decision in New Jersey that was, at that point, limited to civil unions.

The document also said that the movement had to "start winning in state legislatures as well as in courts." Later that year, California's lawmakers would do so — but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure. In 2009, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and DC passed marriage legislatively — although Maine voters repealed the measure in a referendum.

The statement also included a frank assessment of the Federal Marriage Amendment — a proposed constitutional amendment that would have ended marriage equality nationwide — in terms not generally discussed openly by LGBT advocates in that time or in discussions of that time in the time since.

"It might possible to make a ratification fight work for us," according to the statement — but warning that such a fight "would become the exclusive focus of our work for five to seven years."







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