The Fight for Marriage Equality Is Far From Over. A New Book Honors the Long History That Made It Possible.
'Love: The Heroic Story of Marriage Equality' is a reminder of the power of advocacy and visibility
In a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under constant threat, “Love: The Heroic Story of Marriage Equality” arrives as both a powerful reminder and a call to action. This compelling new book, rich in storytelling and archival photographs, is an emotional journey through the fierce and often painful fight for marriage equality, spotlighting the everyday people whose courage changed history. As current political forces jeopardize hard-won rights, it’s not just a timely celebration of what has been achieved, but a stark warning of what could be lost.
By weaving together deeply personal stories beginning in the pre-1970s eras when gay couples were nearly invisible, “Love” uncovers the unsung heroes who became the driving force behind the movement — from the early couples who demanded their right to marry to those who continue to battle for full equality today.
The project, which author and photographer Frankie Frankeny has been working on since the first same-sex marriage took place in 2004 in Massachusetts, has evolved into a powerful testament to resilience and change, shaped by key LGBTQ+ figures: Jim Obergefell, whose name became forever linked to marriage equality through the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which played a crucial role in the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide; Frankeny, a prolific food photographer and director who has produced numerous award-winning books; Evan Wolfson, founder and leader of Freedom to Marry, the campaign that won marriage in the U.S.; and John Casey, senior editor and writer of The Advocate, who helped capture the stories in “Love” for posterity.
Initially envisioned as a documentary, the project evolved into a book, podcast and next, a potential documentary series. Frankeny says she always saw this as an opportunity to change public perception, not just about marriage but about the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. The book was supposed to be published sooner, but the universe had a different, and perhaps a more timely, plan.
“I feel like it's coming out exactly at the time our community needs it the most,” Frankeny said, recognizing how much of a difference these stories can make in today’s sociopolitical climate. “When people are really listening.”
How did the concept for the book start?
Frankie Frankeny: I started advocating for marriage equality in 2004 when Hillary and Julie Goodridge won in Massachusetts. But at that same time, my friends were having their joyous wedding licenses revoked, and it was really devastating to all of them. I started to realize how important these stories were going to be in changing the way people really thought about us — not just being married, but all across the board. I started really thinking of it as a documentary. And then certain people said, “You do book publishing, it should be a book too.”
It’s been 20 years now, collecting these stories. And so over time, it turned into this project, which is the book and a serialized podcast that's coming out that goes deeper into each of the stories. And now we're pitching the docuseries. One of the executive producers cried [during the pitch].
Jim, have you felt the impact of your work for marriage equality in your everyday life?
Jim Obergefell: I've certainly been stopped on the street, in airports, on airplanes. I still think one of the strangest was I was in Columbus, Ohio with a friend. We were parking and there was this pickup truck doing all these weird maneuvers and it parked across the street from us illegally. And as we get out, the guy driving was motioning toward us. We're like, what's going on here? And he gets out of the car and comes across the street and introduces himself and says, “Thank you, Jim. Because of you, I was able to get my green card to stay with my husband here in the U.S.”
John, you documented and wrote some of the stories about these heroes in the book. How do you think they resonate differently now, in this political environment?
John Casey: I think the thread here is this: Everyone I talked to was a fighter, and they didn't start out to be a fighter, but they ended up being a fighter. That's the lesson in the people that I've talked to: Through this journey, they never gave up. And that lesson can be applied today. I think with all of our rights under attack, from military to marriage, to our equal rights or civil rights, the lesson here is the only way you win and get what you want is if you fight. There's no better example than Michael [McConnell] and Jack [Baker], the first gay married couple in the U.S. [in 1971], back when even being gay could put you in jail. I lived through that era, and you could be put in jail. People were creative with finding holes and loopholes within the law. They continued to fight. And they didn't let anything stop them.
Jim, your story with your husband John Arthur, who died from ALS, is deeply personal and played a central role in the movement and, naturally, in the book. As you fought for marriage equality, driven by the urgency of John's terminal illness and your desire to have your love recognized by the law, could you share more about your journey together and reflect on how it has resonated with others over the years?
Obergefell: That experience really made me go, Oh, wow, stories really are powerful and change hearts and minds because I lived it firsthand. I mean, I had someone in the Supreme Court shake my hand and thank me for this fight and then tell me that he was an evangelical Republican, but he changed his mind about marriage equality because of John's and my story. Over time, I've had people tell me that marriage equality kept them from committing suicide because it gave them a future.
So it has been an incredibly meaningful experience for me. John and I, we just wanted to exist. And that wasn't an unusual thing for queer couples. We want to exist in the eyes of our government. And we just were willing to fight, to stand up and to sue for that simple right to exist and be treated with dignity. What I've seen again and again during the case but then after the case is just how important marriage is to people because that relationship is the most important person in the world to them. We deserve that right, the ability to say “I do” to that one person. We deserve the right to form our families and have them be treated equally.
I look at this as a celebration. But I also look at it as a motivation to younger generations to know their history, to understand what it took for the positive changes that have happened in this country. But then to understand how vital it is to keep fighting in memory and in gratitude for all of those people who put everything on the line years ago, decades ago. So it's up to all of us to keep fighting to ensure that marriage and all of the rights that we have gained don't go away.
Jim Obergefell on "Love: The Heroic Story of Marriage Equality"
So it has been an incredible experience for me. But it's also really important for me and for everyone to know that my case, our case, the 30 plaintiffs in this case, didn't spring out of nowhere. If it weren't for people like Edie Windsor and so many of these people featured in the book, and without everything that they did, John and I would have never been in a situation where we could sue the state of Ohio, and actually be part of making the world a better place. So, stories are powerful. It's how we change hearts and minds. And like I say, I experienced it firsthand, I know the power of stories.
The other really important thing is young queer people need to know their heroes, they need to know their history. And that's what this project does. It shares history that, for far too long, we were denied. And it gives people hope, because they can say, “Wait, these people went through something really challenging, really hard, really difficult, but they were willing to do it.” And that's what our community needs. We need heroes. We need access to our history.
Casey: Jim is an extraordinary person, but Jim began this as an ordinary person, he and John. And I think that's the other thing in this too. You have Ellen [DeGeneres] and Portia [de Rossi], who did a lot for mainstream society. But [others] started out as just ordinary citizens who, when they were faced with the realization that their lives were going to be changed if they couldn't get married or couldn't be the same, stepped up to the plate. I think that's a lesson for today, particularly for this generation. Stepping up and being courageous and speaking out is the only way you affect change. And it's the only way you keep the rights that you've earned.
Obergefell: My experience also illustrates the importance of allies. Our attorney, Al Gerhardstein — brilliant man, but straight man — believed in equality; he believed in us and our rights. So these things don't happen in a vacuum. We need allies, we need people who are willing to stand up for us to speak out on our behalf. And also, allies can pop up in the weirdest of places, like Rick Hodges [the defendant in Obergefell v. Hodges]. We're friends. He was on our side the entire time. So I think that's also another important thing: We can't forget our allies, the people who are willing to be there with us to stand with us and say, “We've got you, we're fighting for you.”
Frankeny: You know, so many of these heroes went through something as kids that I feel gave them the fortitude, strength or skills to fight for marriage equality later on in life. Now, every single one of these people had to have the strength to come out. What Jim and John had to go through with the Catholic Church as children and as adults, what Edie Windsor had to go through being called a “dirty Jew.” George Takei was put in a concentration camp as a child. Jack Baker of Jack and Michael, his parents died when he was like 6 and he was in an orphanage and he used all the skills he learned then to navigate the fight for marriage equality later on in life.
For most of us, we lived in isolation for the first two decades of our lives, living every single moment hiding who we were, decorating our original souls with whatever it was that made us look more like a straight dude or a straight gal, hiding our true selves.
How do you feel about the state of marriage equality in this current political climate?
Casey: In my job, readers constantly say, “My marriage is in danger, they’re coming after my marriage.” And so I just had a long conversation with Evan Wolfson for a series of columns I'm going to do about this. He's not worried. He thinks that we're set. Nancy [Pelosi] has told me many times that one of the most consequential things she ever did was to codify marriage. And she was Speaker of the House. Evan's not very worried, neither is Nancy Pelosi, but everybody else is.
So when I interviewed all of these people about their marriages, one of my last questions was, “What if the Supreme Court comes along and takes it away?” Every single one was emphatic and said, “They can't. They won't. No, it won't happen. If they do it, it doesn't mean anything to me because I will always be married.” And so there is a very strong resistance from those that I talked to who will not accept a Supreme Court ruling. Their marriage is a marriage and it's done. There's no discussion about it. And so that is a heartfelt thing — that's an example for all those other people that are out there that are worrying about their own marriages. These people, not worried at all. Whatever the Supreme Court says, they can go fuck themselves.
Jim, how are you feeling about it?
Obergefell: I'm not like Evan Wolfson. I do not trust the Supreme Court. This hasn't been precedent for even 10 years yet. They overturned a precedent that was in place for 49 years. We've had Supreme Court justices point blank say, “I want to overturn Obergefell.” So yes, marriage is at risk. Now, I can't talk to what would happen. Would they invalidate all existing marriages? I don't know. Would it create a disaster? Absolutely. No question. But John and I refused to have a symbolic ceremony back in the mid ’90s because we wanted marriage and everything it stood for. If Obergefell is overturned, if the Respect for Marriage Act were rescinded, which could happen with 60 votes… we wanted marriage that wasn't just symbolic. We wanted those 1,138 rights, protections and privileges. If Obergefell is overturned, if the Respect for Marriage Act is taken away, those 1,138 rights no longer exist.
Frankeny: And it's no longer marriage. Even if they have the White House and they have all the Senate and all Congress, they have to be able to get 60 votes in the Senate. So that seems highly unlikely, but it's not highly unlikely that Obergefell will be overturned at the Supreme Court and marriage goes back to the states, still protecting those who are currently married with their federal rights. But it'll be a mess. Hopefully, these stories will not only show people the beauty that has come from gaining this right, but these stories will hopefully show people absolutely why they need to fight, why we cannot go back.
Casey: We have to be vigilant, we have to keep our eye on the ball, and we have to make sure we're out there fighting, because we still have to fight. Yes, we won, but it's a matter of protecting what we want. And that's the overriding message.
With this threat to marriage equality and, in general, the current risk of just being LGBTQ+, what do you believe is the most important message the book sends at this critical time?
Casey: The younger generation for the last couple of years has been saying, when it comes to Pride Month, “pinkwashing, pinkwashing, pinkwashing.” And I remember a time when there were no corporate sponsors and a Pride march was just people holding signs and there weren't floats, OK? I wrote a column that said, pinkwashing, you better watch out, because it's going to be that quick that these corporations can just run away and you don't have it there. And I think that's the implicit message here: Don't take for granted this right that you have. What you have right now can be wiped away because you take your eye off the ball, you become too complacent, and you get too spoiled with what you have. And the lesson that every couple had was, “Fight. Don't take it for granted."
Frankeny: I'm going to ditto what John said — don't be complacent. Complacency isn't an option anymore. We've been here before. It's been worse. Tens of thousands in our community were just dying, their bodies being thrown in the dumpster in the back of a hospital for friends to come pick up and put in a cab to take to the morgue because nobody would bring their bodies. And the president [Ronald Reagan] wouldn't even say the word AIDS. We have been thrown in jail for just being gay. People have been lobotomized. They've had electroshock treatments. It's been bad, but we've told our stories. It's sort of a common belief that marriage equality happened fast for us, but it didn't. It was this process of people coming out, telling their stories and then being able to fall in love, and then being able to fight for marriage equality, most of them, because they felt like they had to. But it's a belief that it happened quickly.
There are gay people in everybody's family, and as more people started to share their stories, more people became comfortable just sharing their stories with their families and more people were coming out. So I think these stories foster understanding and when people understand, they have less fear.
Obergefell: This project is specific to marriage and we can see over the years the people who helped make marriage a reality. But this applies to all rights that the queer community enjoys. They are all at risk. And it's up to us as a community to know our history, to not be complacent, and also to look at it as, “I owe it to the people who came before me to fight to keep the positive changes they made for me a reality.”
So, for me, I look at this as a celebration. But I also look at it as a motivation for younger generations to know their history, to understand what it took for the positive changes that have happened in this country. But then to understand how vital it is to keep fighting in memory and in gratitude for all of those people who put everything on the line years ago, decades ago. So it's up to all of us to keep fighting to ensure that marriage and all of the rights that we have gained don't go away. We can only do that by knowing our history and being willing to fight for our history on behalf of those people who made things better for us.
Join the fight against the growing wave of book bans and the erasure of queer history by purchasing a copy of “Love: The Heroic Story of Marriage Equality” for a local library or queer youth center, where they are needed most. Your donation helps to ensure that stories of love, equality and resilience are accessible to all, especially in spaces where these books might otherwise be restricted or banned. Visit justmarried.us/category/supporters for more information.
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