Don't Forget John Lewis Also Stood For LGBTQ+ Equality

While heading to the Georgia State Capitol, where his body would lie in state, the funeral procession carrying the body of John Lewis made several quick, but poignant stops.

My favorite was when the hearse stopped in the intersection of 10th Street and Piedmont and sat surrounded on four sides by the LGBTQ Pride flag crosswalks as those gathered to pay tribute to Lewis’s allyship with our community and his vocal support of LGBTQ rights throughout his political career.

John Lewis was one of the first Democrats, and first African American, to officially support same-sex marriage when he came out in favor of equality over twenty years ago; fifteen years before the Supreme Court legalized the unions. Lewis lobbied for the Human Rights Campaign during the ’90s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ era, and was one of two Georgia lawmakers who refused to sign the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Lewis also stood out against Georgia’s ban on gay adoption.

He compared the struggle for the equal treatment of LGBTQ people to his work on the front lines of the civil rights movement in an October 2003 Boston Globe editorial:

“We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry. Some say let’s choose another route and give gay folks some legal rights but call it something other than marriage. We have been down that road before in this country. Separate is not equal. The rights to liberty and happiness belong to each of us and on the same terms, without regard to either skin color or sexual orientation. Some say they are uncomfortable with the thought of gays and lesbians marrying. But our rights as Americans do not depend on the approval of others. Our rights depend on us being Americans.”

Remember; John Lewis thought equality belonged to everyone in this country, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual orientation of gender identity, and he was fighting our battle long before a lot of us even got here.

RIP.

h/t Towleroad