Some of you may be familiar with a geopolitical population phenomenon both maligned and hailed as "The Big Sort" (that's the title of a book on this by Bill Bishop, to whom I have no relation whatsoever). The concept of the research and the book is that people are choosing to live and work where people whose politics resemble theirs are. According to his research, this is why we’re seeing more counties that vote overwhelmingly for one candidate or party in most elections. My spouse and I both noticed these trends several years ago, and we have within the past year or so started referring to counties by their percentage vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in the most recent election. For example, Multnomah County, Oregon, home to one of our favorite funky cities, Portland, is a place we refer to as a "75% county". They went 77% for Obama in 2008. Starr County, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, is an 80% county (they went to Obama 84%!).
You see, we live in Texas, and we have a bad case of Blue State Envy. We want out.
Although if present demographic trends continue, and the national party invests, Texas will very likely be THE swing state of 2012 or 2016 and has a good chance of going blue somewhere in that range, Texas isn’t exactly widely known as an incipient blue state these days. In fact, I frequently lament that our state suffers from a political investment handicap due to its conservative reputation, in spite of the clear rapid pace of change here. That would be a diary in itself, and I’m not going there today.
There are blue states, and then there are BLUE states. Even if the National Laboratory for Bad Government threatens to turn blue soon, we’d prefer not to stick around. You can decry our failure to stay and fight, but we’re tired. We live in a nearly perennial blue county (except for 2000, when Nader scored 11% and Bush won the county by a hair), and we’ve lived here for over a decade. It’s an uphill slog on a small blue island resting on bedrock that’s not exactly progressive. Not the least of the reasons we’d like to leave is the fact that we’re gay. We’re special-double-dog-illegal here. Our city has some nondiscrimination provisions in place, which is a covetable thing, and helpful to a certain extent. But our relationship is completely unrecognizable legally here – by state law and by state constitutional amendment. We know that southern states like this one is (predominantly – it’s a weird hybrid) will let go of their discriminatory provisions if and when the federal government pries them from their cold, dead hands. We could just move to a blue state, but what would moving to Florida get us? North Carolina or Indiana? Colorado?
Pretty much nothing, really. It’s just a small shift across a spectrum. Legally, the worst of those moves is Florida. Not only do we shift into another state where our relationship is double-cross-extra illegal by law and constitutional amendment. We’ve discussed the idea of raising children some day, and we can’t do that in Florida. The state law bars us from adopting children. (Are you homosexual? Yes. End of process.) Well, that’s it for Florida.
In North Carolina and Indiana, they at least don’t have constitutional amendments that outlaw our marriage. They still have laws that do. North Carolina’s conservatives are trying, for the sixth year in a row, to end that state’s run as the only state in the South with no such amendment. Democrats in the State Legislature have managed to kill the amendment each year so far, but if it gets to a ballot vote, a poll last year showed that 76 percent of North Carolinians would vote to ban us. Sounds like North Carolina’s larger population doesn’t want us there, and we want to live somewhere where our fledgling family is safe. That would be even harder if the amendment passed, too, because it says "This Constitution shall not be construed to require that marital status or the rights, privileges, benefits, or other legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried individuals or groups." That means that, like Texas, it’s not just us marrying they want to stop. They want to make sure we have a hard time constructing legal arrangements to protect ourselves and our family at all. Indiana’s legislature has taken up such provisions each session, but this year it stalled and, since Indiana’s constitution is harder to amend than many states’, that would make it, potentially, marginally safer...if it weren’t Indiana. Get a taste of how being gay in Indiana feels from blogger and activist Bil Browning in blogs like The Bilerico Project. No, thanks, we both grew up in the Midwest (Oklahoma and Missouri). Not going back to that, no offense to those of you who live there.
And that’s the thing – even in the middle of the country, there are places where our rights are moving forward. Bills have been filed in the legislatures of Minnesota and Iowa to make marriage gender neutral. Will they pass? Iowa’s got a history of doing the right thing, and their governor’s a Democrat. This, of course, means nothing to us. Maryland’s got a Democrat in the governor’s mansion, but Martin O’Malley is anti-marriage-equality, so what does that matter? Minnesota’s governor is, of course, McCain stooge Tim Pawlenty. No way in Hell would he sign such a provision, and I somehow doubt that polka-dot-purple Minnesota’s legislature is so progressive that they’ll override his veto if, by some miracle, the measure were to pass. While we hail these developments as a step forward, they do nothing concrete to protect our family. Heck, North Dakota’s Senate recently passed a bill adding sexual orientation to their nondiscrimination classes, but our marriage means nothing there, legally. It’s a step, but only a step. And North Dakota’s not blue, though we agree with many people that a little investment and dialogue could get the Dakotas on their way. But they’re not the kind of blue we need. Just like many people talk about electing better Democrats to Congress now that we have a Democratic majority there, my husband and I need a better blue state. Lord knows we’re doomed in the red states – downright likely to be killed, in some of them (and our killers might get short sentences to thank them for public service).
Now, somewhat consistent with the idea of The Big Sort, we could live in gayborhoods anywhere they exist, like Oak Lawn in Dallas, Montrose in Houston, Boystown in Chicago, South Beach in Miami, and so on, and cloister ourselves away, in a manner of speaking. We’d be surrounded in the gay community, which has that safety in numbers feeling. It’s an island, and a false one. The structural interventions that make up the foundation for a safe, productive life for us just aren’t fully there in some of those places, no matter how falsely secure we may feel ensconced in the geographic heart of the gay community. Heck, even in Gay World HeadQuarters, San Francisco, we’re still subject to Proposition 8 at this point in time (thank you, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Pharisees and that Catholic Church, among others). And, frankly, we like to know and interact with a more diverse range of people, and don’t want to be in a world that’s all-gay-all-the-time. Gayborhoods are fun to visit sometimes, and they do have value as cultural centers, but there’s more to us than our sexuality.
So, what constitutes a better blue state? Well, Iowa could be rolling down that road. Their Supreme Court considered a case of marriage equality in December (Varnum v. Brien). Some rumors have floated around that the court will uphold the lower court’s ruling, which was in favor of marriage equality. I’ve heard some people say it would be easier for a court to uphold a lower court’s favorable ruling than it would for a court to reverse a lower court’s unfavorable ruling (California’s was a reversal). Illinois, arguably a seriously blue state, has a bill under consideration in its legislature that would grant us civil union status. We know, though, that downstate of Chicago and outside of Urbana/Champaign, our civil union, while legally binding, may mean little for our safety on a practical level in red territory that is indistinguishable from surrounding Midwestern states. We’re not in Kansas, Toto, but we might as well be. But what states are THERE already, or at least, close enough that we feel like we’ll be safe(r)?
We’ve had to learn a lot and do a lot of research to understand where that is. We stay constantly engaged with the news. We monitor blogs, newswires, and the websites of activist organizations and legislatures. We keep in touch with a network of friends in various places, and each of us disseminates whatever we find...when the domestic partnership bill got out of committee in the Washington state Senate, my phone lit up like Christmas. We don’t live in Hawai’i, but you bet your ass we watched as much of the live feed of the Senate committee hearings on a bill granting civil unions as we could. We have watched in horror as church influence on the state (particularly the Mormons, who are strong there) caused the Senate’s commitment to calling the bill out of committee to waver. It’s a disappointment. We talked about it, and my husband said, "I’d forgotten the Mormon church was so influential there. I like Hawai’i. I wish we could live there. I guess we have to cross that one off the list." And on it goes.
We weigh what various secondary classes to marriage mean for our relationship, and how likely we think a state is to move toward full equality for us. What’s a "domestic partnership" versus a "civil union" versus "reciprocal beneficiaries"? What does "civil union" mean in Vermont, versus New Hampshire? Did the legislature make it everything-but-the-word-marriage, or is "civil union" only a few certain rights and responsibilities while reserving the vast remainder of rights to straight couples? Is a domestic partnership in Oregon more or less likely than a New Hampshire civil union to move toward being just plain old marriage through legislative or judicial efforts? Do they have a constitutional amendment that has to be overcome and repealed before that can happen? And what other protections do they have in place? How robust are they, and how well are they enforced? Have they been challenged in court, as they have in New York, and so are already secure or modified? Because, as you well know, even though opponents of LGBT rights constantly complain about "activist courts" , if we advance in some other realm than the judicial branch, they’ll go to court to stop us from breathing legal air a little easier.
And what about our California marriage? Even though the U.S. Constitution says in the Full faith and credit clause
28 USC §1738: Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the US and it Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.
our marriage license isn’t portable. What will other states do with that status? Will it be like the prospective Illinois civil union law, which would have our California marriage automatically recognized as an Illinois civil union? Or will we have to go to a new office and pay a new fee and fill out new paperwork to have a new legal status when we move across a state line? (You can guess how that idea feels.) We have the fortune of simple recognition of our marriage in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York (though New Yorkers have to go to one of the other two states or Canada to actually GET hitched). This, of course, presumes that California’s Supreme Court tells the christians who sued to have our marriage license erased allow our otherwise legal marriage to stand. As it is, we live in a jurisdiction wherein our marriage is nothing. Legally, we’re strangers in Texas. We married in California because we love one another and want to build a home and a life and grow old together – and because we believe in the institution and want to support the rights of other couples to that same institution. For now, it’s symbolic, but it’s a powerful symbol to a lot of people (not least of all, us), and we’d like to be somewhere that it would carry real weight legally. If tomorrow the Supreme Court judges issue a ruling that upholds Proposition 8, but leaves our marriage’s legal footing intact, we’d want to make sure we lived in California to assert ourselves and the rights concomitant with our marriage. Yes, we know California’s financial situation is teetering on a precipice. Our civil rights are, too.
So for those lusting after some other place to live, be that a warm beachy place for the Minnesotans (Iowa: it’s Baja Minnesota!) or a Rocky Mountain high-daway for those who suffer with us through sweltering southern summers...be it the wilds of Alaska, beloved of some climber stranded in New York City, or a Big Sky view that draws a Chicagoan whose skyline is all skyscraper, all the time, I feel your pain. My husband and I hold strong affections for a number of places – California, Vermont, Connecticut, Hawai’i, Wyoming, and Missouri, to name a few. Some of us want to be closer to family (some of us long to get the heck away from them)...many of us, as The Big Sort notes, want to spend more time and money with those who think as we do. Just remember us GLBT people, if you’re not one of us, when you consider your next move. Thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to go through this maze when you look for a new job or just want a change. And, please, give some thought to making your state, your county, your city, a place we want to be. We’re hardworking, responsible folks with a lot of skills and knowledge, and when we move in next door, your property values tend to go up (just kidding! sort of). We have a tremendous contribution to make to any place, and we have a lot of friends and family who’d happily contribute to those places we choose, too. Anti-gay measures can make other places look attractive to talented, valuable workers; sometimes industries that want to attract talented employees of all kinds may choose to locate new facilities elsewhere.
Beyond affection for people and place, beyond red and blue, what many lesbian and gay people like my husband and I most seek is what my husband and some friends have begun to refer to as "free states". States where we are free – free to be ourselves. Free to marry. Free to work, live breathe, and express who were without fear. We have considered emigration to Canada, and it’s not off the table, but we’re still Americans for now, and we really do believe in this nation. It’s our fervent hope that more of the states bear that belief out and prove us right for staying.