America Got Gay Marriage, but It Came at a Cost

It’s a strange time for gay rights in America. As the country nears the 10th anniversary of the legalization of gay marriage nationwide, support for same-sex unions has risen to 70 percent of the American public. But at the same time, L.G.B.T.Q. people are being targeted in ways not seen since the days of Save Our Children, Anita Bryant’s infamous 1977 campaign against gay rights that depicted gay men as human garbage and pedophiles.

In recent years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have banned drag shows, gender-affirming care for minors and adults, and the teaching of sexual orientation from kindergarten through the third grade, including the passage of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Panic about “grooming,” a homophobic slur that exploits people’s worst fears about gays and children, is having a moment.

Even Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage, is under attack. In 2020, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas cast doubt on the legality of the ruling, which could yet go the same way as Roe v. Wade. The Respect for Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 2022, did not codify the ruling into law and would provide scant protection.

Clearly, marriage equality was not enough to bring full equality to L.G.B.T.Q. Americans. It would be wishful to think it could, perhaps. But the gay marriage campaign was a major missed opportunity to expand L.G.B.T.Q. equality. When compared with its foreign counterparts, the American campaign was notable for one thing: the extraordinary modesty of its framing.

The approach was good enough to make gay marriage the law of the land. Yet by failing to make a more ambitious case for equality across the board, as other countries did, the campaign limited the transformative power of gay marriage and created an opening for today’s backlash.

Inspired by the civil rights movement’s struggle for equality under the law, the campaign — which ran for roughly two decades until the ruling in 2015 — was framed around “rights and benefits.” It spotlighted the rights denied to same-sex couples, including tax deductions, inheritance provisions and hospital visitation privileges.