The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in what most expect to be the culminating decision on gay marriage on April 28.
WASHINGTON–Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas has joined 225 other U.S. mayors in formally urging the Supreme Court to strike down state laws in dozens of states, including Texas, that make gay marriage illegal. The Supreme Court hears arguments April 28 in what many have called the biggest, and potentially most divisive, individual liberties case since 1973′s Roe v Wade. The mayors have weighed in among dozens of other advocacy groups, all of whom aiming to both make a statement and, though their chances are tiny, sway the outcome.
Rawlings’ decision to formally involve himself in the gay marriage campaign is a departure for him, as it comes after years of resisting pressure to formally declare his support as mayor for gay marriage, though he’s often said he personally supports it. His lack of support helped doom a 2013 City Council resolution in support of marriage equality. Rawlings told Rudy Bush in 2013 the resolution was just politics, untimely and a distraction. The year before he refused to join other mayors nationwide to sign a pledge in support of gay marriage, telling The News’ Matthew Haag that he respected gay couples but refused to sign a merely symbolic pledge. “I don’t like to sign pledges. There are too many pledges out there already,” he said. (Update: Rawlings did support a gay rights resolution in 2014, tied to support for gay and lesbian employees.)
But times have changed, and so has the mayor’s willingness to formally engage this issue. In an exclusive interview with The Dallas Morning News, Rawlings said it was time for him to speak out as Dallas mayor in support of its gay residents’ rights.
“I am not a big fan of signing toothless pledges because I don’t find them very significant,” Rawlings said. “But this is significant and I feel like I am speaking for hundreds of thousands of citizens of Dallas, Texas. I wanted to make sure the Supreme Court knows that there is a mayor in Texas, and in one of the top-10 cities in the country, that feels that the city of Dallas will be better off (with gay marriage.)”
Five Texas mayors signed the brief, including Houston Mayor Annise Parker and mayors of Shavono Park, Valley Mills, and Socorro, small cities near San Antonio, Waco and El Paso, respectively.
Rawlings said granting gay marriage is the right thing to do for gay couples, but also “the prudent thing to do for cities as we start to grow and as we attract businesses to come here day in and day out.”
Rawlings called the case “the most important Supreme Court decision that is going to be made here in the 21st Century.”
He said the decision to speak out was rooted in his relationships.
“This is a personal issue for me,” Rawlings said. “I have so many friends in the LGBT community and this is really a moment of truth for them and for me. I am so proud not only to be rooting for this case to succeed, but also to be actively petitioning the Supreme Court on their behalf.”
Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas. File photo by Vernon Bryant.
The amicus brief was ready for filing Friday morning, and will be lodged with the court later in the day. Rawlings said he told leaders at the U.S. Conference of Mayors he wanted to help on this issue, and that a copy of the brief was eventually sent to him in draft. “I studied it, and found it to be in consort with my own feelings,” he said.
The brief argues both the U.S. Constitution protects the right to marriage, including gay marriage, against any local, state or federal law that would restrict it on the basis of the genders of those who seek to marry. It also says gay marriage is good for cities. In many states, gay marriage bans are so broadly worded they infringe on other kind of gay rights ordinances cities have enacted, it argues.
“Excluding a certain class of people from marriage undermines the dignity and respect that government owes everyone,” the brief states. “Gay and lesbian couples live in all of our communities, where they raise children, support each other in sickness and in health, combine assets, buy homes and otherwise engage in all the indicia of marriage. The stability of these family units directly benefit municipalities.”
It quotes Houston’s Parker, a lesbian who has been elected mayor three times, on its second page: “Marriages cement families, families build neighborhoods; strong neighborhoods create strong communities; strong communities make strong cities, and cities are the backbone of America,” she said.
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Rawlings’ stance in favor of gay marriage isn’t unusual, not even in Dallas. The city is home to one of the largest gay populations between the U.S. coasts, and is home to the Cathedral of Hope, sometimes billed as the largest gay-oriented church in the world. As recently as 2007, it saw its mayoral election come down to a run-off between businessman Tom Leppert and openly gay city councilman Ed Oakley, the same year a lesbian was elected Dallas County sheriff. Mayors have long walked in the city’s sometimes raucous gay pride parade down Cedar Springs Avenue.