The Top Five Heroes and Heroines in LGBT rights in 2008

From old voices to new voices, 2008 was a year that brought a good many LGBT rights supporters into the mix. And mix it up they did. Below is our list of the top five LGBT heroes and heroines of the year. But don’t think for a minute that the activism and push for equal rights that these folks championed ends on December 31. We half expect that our 2009 list will include many of these same names and faces. To the list!

5. Sunil Pant. He went from being a computer engineer a decade ago, to Nepal’s first openly gay member of Parliament. And now he’s acting on a global stage, serving as one of the lead voices of a growing gay rights movement in Southeast Asia. Earlier this year, Nepal’s highest court ordered the country to come up with some form of legal recognition for same-sex marriage. The court’s decision came about because of a petition submitted by the Blue Diamond Society – an organization that Pant founded. Pant also took center stage earlier this month at the United Nations, when the body’s first gay rights statement was officially read on the floor. Pant was able to address the entire UN, saying, “On the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) the UN may be divided but we, the people of Nepal, are encouraged to advance everyone’s rights regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

4. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. There are a number of people whose very names represent the struggle for marriage equality faced by LGBT persons. But Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon are part of the foundation of today’s LGBT rights movement, having co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis fifty years ago at a time when you could be fired or imprisoned simply for being gay. They were the first same-sex couple married in San Francisco four years ago when Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a decree allowing gay marriages (it was suspended one month later by the California Supreme Court). This year, they married once again, although this time it was recognized by the entire state of California following the state Supreme Court’s ruling in May that (temporarily) legalized gay marriage. Two months later, in August 2008, Del Martin passed away. Though her passing ended the life and career of an LGBT rights icon, both Martin’s and Lyon’s work for LGBT rights came full circle with their legal marriage this year.

3. Governor David Paterson. I can’t wait to read the “2008” chapter in Governor Paterson’s autobiography. First the guy becomes Governor after his boss resigns the office because of a prostitution scandal. Two months later, the fledgling governor issues an executive declaration saying that New York will become the first state in the U.S. to recognize gay marriages conducted anywhere they are legal. It was a sly political move to hopscotch over the state’s Senate, a perennial roadblock to legalizing gay marriage in the Empire State. So while New York State still isn’t recognizing gay marriages conducted in Syracuse or Elmira, they are recognizing marriages conducted in Hartford and Boston. That’s entirely because of Paterson. Now let’s see if he can convince the state legislature to pass marriage equality legislation. He’s vowed to sign it if a bill comes to his desk.

2. The staff of the Courage Campaign (CC). We could single out any number of folks here. There’s Rick Jacobs, the co-founder of Brave New Films and chair of CC. There’s Eden James, the former Field Director for Rep. Jerry McNerney’s 2006 Congressional run and CC’s Managing Director. Or Julia Rosen, the Online Political Director of CC who used to work for Common Cause and the Alliance for a Better California. The list goes on…but the Courage Campaign has emerged as the preeminent progressive organization in California. In the wake of Proposition 8’s passage in California, the Courage Campaign was one of the first to take a reflective look at what went wrong, and has vowed to make sure that any future campaign over marriage equality in California won’t look like what we saw in 2008. (Their online statement calling for a repeal of Prop 8 has more than 311,000 signatures as of this writing, and they have a January training camp planned, Camp Courage, to train marriage equality activists to work the field and build networks for progressive causes.) As Jacobs explained in an interview with Queerty’s Japhy Grant, “We must catalyze and build the grassroots/netroots movement and we must have smart political leadership. We need both. The organizations that ran the last campaign must not run the next one. And the next campaign began on November 5th. The last campaign consisted largely of an executive committee…they did not include actively labor and other progressive allies. The campaign was top down and insular. That cannot happen again.” Amen.

1. Tie. Amy Balliet and Willow White. Folks have penned it Stonewall 2.0, but one thing remains clear: the massive organizing that took place in the aftermath of Proposition 8 wouldn’t look the same without Join the Impact, the Web site launched after a conversation between Balliet and White. Balliet (who lives in Seattle) and White (who lives in Cleveland) were wondering how they could speak out against Proposition 8 in their own respective communities. A Web site was launched. A day of action was called. And more than 100,000 people took to the streets in over 300 communities around the country to stand up for marriage equality. Their next act? A January 10 day of action urging people around the country to come together and urge the incoming Obama administration to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).