Jack Baker was the first person to bring the issue of expanding marriage to same sex couples to the Supreme Court. In 1972's case Baker v. Nelson the culmination of his struggle led to a one sentence dismissal by the Court, saying that there was no substantial federal question. But his story doesn't start, nor end, there.
As a young man in the 1970s, gay activist and attorney Jack Baker claimed many "firsts" in his life — first gay student-body president of any university, first attempted gay marriage, first adult adoption of one's same-sex partner.
Baker is a lawyer who sued for the right to marry his life partner, and enlisted the Minnesota ACLU for help. The case relied on many of the same precedents and facts on which Perry relied. The Loving case was cited as proof that marriage is considered a fundamental right. They also argued that "it was invidious discrimination based on an irrational prejudice against gay people."
For Baker's work on the case, for his history of activism, he got a one sentence dismissal and endured harassment and other obstacles.
And both men [Baker and his partner] paid a price, said the now-retired Castner and Stark[Minnesota ACLU lawyer, and President, respectively]. "We were working very closely with them on several issues," recalled Stark. "Gay marriage was one. Another was Mike McConnell had been offered a job at the University of Minnesota library. As the gay marriage issue got publicized, they refused to hire him. Another issue was Jack Baker being allowed to take the bar exam. We were successful on the bar issue and we lost on the university hiring and same-sex marriage issues."
The hostility directed at them and the setbacks they suffered are "true of all leaders," Stark said. "They are both fine people. It was extremely difficult and painful to be living in a country where you could not get married. It is still an issue in Minnesota."
This was indeed the first case of its kind. This was before Harvey Milk was elected and became a popular gay icon. This was only about a year after Stonewall. Bringing a case like this without much history of support to back you up took more courage than I can even contemplate. This was truly a case of a guy just wanting to marry his long time partner and going as far as he could to make it happen.
Even today, though, the loss of his partner's job or the idea that he wouldn't be hired as a lawyer because he's gay is unsurprising. We still don't even have ENDA passed and that's legislation which has been discussed since at least the 1970s. People are still, right now, being fired for a lot less. Fired for just "looking" gay or "talking" gay. Or just not hired at all.
But Baker isn't a guy to just pretend the status quo is sustainable:
Baker quickly became a public figure while attending the University of Minnesota. He is credited with founding the first gay student organization in 1969. In 1971, he was elected the first gay student-body president of any university and was re-elected in 1973.
He and McConnell applied for a marriage license in 1970.
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In 1971, they applied again and were awarded a marriage license in Mankato, Minn. They were married by a Methodist minister in Minneapolis.
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"Jack put himself out in front with everything, from megaphone to print," recalled Lynn Castner, who, with the late Michael Wetherbee, was counsel to Baker in the Supreme Court appeal. "He was a very, very active advocate for rights."
It's a shame that many of these fights are still ongoing four decades later. Baker is still with his partner and, while he's not focused on marriage anymore, he's still doing other things. They're just trying to live normal lives like we all are, but when you're gay and when you see the way things are, you have to be active. At least that's the way I feel. Good enough isn't good enough. We don't need to keep fighting over these same issues for forty more years. Something has to give.
If Baker had the same type of support system gays have now, thanks to the internet and other factors, his work might have been further reaching than it was. There was no "GetEqual" in 1970. ACT UP wouldn't exist for a decade - and by that time AIDS was becoming such a serious problem that gay political groups were mostly focused on trying to keep gay people alive and keep HIV/AIDS from spreading, especially in the midst of a presidential administration who refused to acknowledge the crisis.
Now, forty years later, we have political activist groups focused on a broader range of issues. We have gay characters on TV. We have songs about being gay. We have gay elected officials and gay people in every level of government. The ideas about gay people have morphed from "homosexual acts by practicing homosexuals" to "gay couples" and families and partners. People who want to spend their lives together. Even now for a lot of people, just reading Justice Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas is like retreating back into the '50s and listening to some small-minded bigoted rant, and his dissent was written in 2003.
Baker stopped thinking about same-sex marriage in 1980. He says, "I stopped dealing with this issue in 1980 when it took off on a life of its own,[...]I just figured, 'Let it run.' I have other issues."
And Matthew Stark, the former president of the Minnesota ACLU sees the way this is going to play out. He says the issue is fundamentally over. Stark says, "The gay and lesbian community has won,"[...]"It's now about getting it into operation that we are fussing about. It will be overwhelmingly accepted in a matter of years, just as the teaching of evolution has been."
Forty years later and we've won. It's all over but the implementation. We've reached a tipping point that's impossible to scale back from. This is it. There will be setbacks and there will be a lot of dissenters, especially as this case makes its way through the courts, but it can't be stopped because the times have changed. Sentiments have changed. 1970 isn't 2010. Hell, 2004 is not 2010. We're wrapping this thing up.