PHOTO: The front and back cover jacket of a book by Michael McConnell, with Jack Baker, as Told to Gail Langer Karwoski, "The Wedding Heard 'Round the World - America's First Gay Marriage," University of Minnesota Press, 2016. (See previous posts Book by Michael McConnell on his marriage to Jack Baker that led to the first Supreme Court case on gay marriage (12/29/15) and Baker on gay marriage in 1972 vs. 2015 reaction to Supreme Court ruling (7/17/15))
The pioneering gay marriage activism of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell is finally beginning to be included in the most recent gay history books. For example, Baker is included in the book by Nathaniel Frank, "Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America," Harvard University Press 2017. (See previous post Baker-McConnell marriage in 'The Advocate' 50th anniversary issue (5/22/17))
My low vision blindness has prevented me from checking it out to see if it contains any errors or other biases, which for decades has plagued the proper recording of gay marriage history and it led Baker and McConnell to write their own book shown above.
A very encouraging sign is what is said in the following book review in a New York City gay newspaper:
" In 2014, despite falling well short of the stated goal of the Prop 8 lawsuit, Becker released her controversial book, "Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight For Marriage Equality," . . . Olson and Boies published their truly awful book, "Redeeming the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality." . . . The two books and the documentary were a media onslaught that was all the more offensive because they represented the organizations that had been battling for marriage for years as obstacles to winning the goal of marriage in all 50 states. Now comes Nathaniel Frank's "Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America," an exhaustively researched book that correctly attributes the basis for the ultimate marriage win to the case that the US Supreme Court heard at the same time as the Prop 8 case - Edie Windsor's successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 federal statute that barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages and allowed states to do the same."
(Quoted from Duncan Osborne, "The Fight for Marriage in Broad, Informed Context," gaycitynews.nyc posted June 8, 2017)
Also see the following links:
- Author Biography for "Nathaniel Frank," Harvard University Press www.hup.harvard.edu accessed Jun. 26, 3027 says, "Nathaniel Frank is Director of the What We Know Project at Columbia Law School."
- A photo "Jack Baker and James Michael McConnell apply for a marriage license in Minneapolis," is featured in the blog post by Nathaniel Frank, "At the Dawn of Gay Liberation, Same-Sex Marriage Was a Radical Idea," slate.com/blogs/ Apr. 25, 2017
- Advocate book excerpt: Nathaniel Frank, "How Prop. 8 Woke Up a Sleeping Gay Giant," advocate.com posted April 24 2017 - LGBT historian Nathaniel Frank breaks down the 60-year battle for marriage equality in his new book, Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America. In this excerpt, Frank looks at how Prop. 8 catalyzed a movement.
- See the Amazon book page for other information about the book by Nathaniel Frank, "Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America Hardcover - April 24, 2017" amazon.com accessed Jun. 16, 2017
