What it means when #LoveWins: a new era of LGBTQ rights

Every now and again, a moment comes along in your life when you can’t help but think: Wow, I’m living history. This is going to be a story for my grandkids. For millions of people in the LGBTQ+ community, that moment happened on Friday when after decades of divisive wrangling, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had a Constitutional right to marriage. 

Opening up my social media on the big day, I was flooded with tweets, posts, photos, and reblogs boasting rainbow icons and the internationally-trending hashtag #LoveWins. It’s a triumphant milestone to say the least, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit overwhelmed with the magnitude of the response. Don’t get me wrong, this is an important victory for LGBTQ+ Americans that radiates a crucial message: your rights are valid and they’re of federal importance.

But here’s where my apprehension begins — when articles like this one and this one are happy to declare that “hoorah! The era of LGBTQ+ rights has finally reached its descent! “Gay culture” no longer!”. With every claim that we’re closing the book on America’s homophobic past, we’re oversimplifying the issue horrendously.

We can’t pretend that Friday’s accomplishment was an end goal – the LGBTQ+ community faces marginalisation at so many levels, and the issue of same-sex marriage is just one step towards total equality. Let’s not forget the fact that even though LGBTQ+ Person X can now marry a partner of their choice in any state, if their employer finds out, they may be legally fired in 29 of those states. They may also legally be evicted from their own home because of their sexuality. Beyond the archaic laws that are still in place, there’s also still a societal attitude with room for improvement (frightening statistics on hate crimes towards LGBTQ+ people, anyone?).

Let’s consider, for a minute, the issue of civil rights in Canada. It is outlined in the Charter that no person shall be discriminated upon based on their sex and thus it is highly illegal for the gendered wage gap to exist. Unfortunately, that neither stops it from happening nor eliminates any of the other gender-based issues that Canadian women face. The reason for this is regretfully simple: a change in policy is not a change in society.

So while we celebrate this great step forward in LGBTQ+ rights —  and yes, by all means, rejoice about this long-awaited milestone! — keep the big picture in mind. There are still millions of people that actively oppose gay marriage. There’s still progress to be made. There’s still a conversation to be had. 

One thing’s for certain, though: June 26th, 2015 is going to be a day that goes down in history, just as it should.