Person of the Year

Edie Windsor 

Edie with her late spouse Thea Spyer

Time magazine may have put the Pope on its Person of the Year cover, but the staff here at Counterlight's Peculiars voted for Edie Windsor, and in that I am unanimous.  A widow who was hardly shy and meek put a spike heeled boot through the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the gates for same sex couples everywhere in the USA, even in gay-hostile states in the Old Confederacy and in parts of the Midwest.  This was an easy pick this year.

The pundits go on with breathless amazement at the suddenness of the big gay success story this year; marriage equality in 18 (count them, eighteen) states.  The snowball began with the 2012 elections that saw marriage equality legislation of one kind or another win on the ballots of 4 states.  ENDA sailed through the Senate this past year with sponsors from both parties.  Only Speaker Boehner appeasing the reactionaries who dominate the House kept that vital anti-discrimination bill from becoming law.

Those of us who've been paying attention all this time know that this sudden sea-change is the end result of more than a century of blood, sweat, and tears in the struggle for freedom and dignity for sexual minorities.