When the Supreme Court granted same-sex marriage its final victory nationwide Friday, John Allen’s mind traveled back 22 years, to New Haven’s aldermanic chambers.
At that time, Allen and other gay-rights activists were launching a political quest here in town that, after an initial defeat, helped change the law of Connecticut — and contribute to a movement that Friday changed the law of the United States.
A gay-rights activist for three decades in New Haven, Allen (pictured) was among the activists who backed then-Alderman Michael Morand in a push to have New Haven recognize not gay marriage, but a partial form of legal recognition version known as domestic partnership. After fierce debate, the ordinance was defeated at the Board of Alders with a total of 15 “no” votes, losing by one vote.
Ten years later, in 2003, alders again rejected the proposal, but this time with just nine votes against it. On Nov. 12, 2008, Connecticut became the second state to legalize same-sex marriage. Robin and Barbara Levine-Ritterman were the first to obtain marriage licenses in New Haven that day, and Peg Oliveira and Jen Vickery were the first to hold a same-sex marriage, in front of City Hall’s Amistad statue (in video at the top of the story).
Now, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, it’s legal in all 50 states.
“The arc of America’s moral universe bent more firmly toward justice today,” Morand said, almost a quarter-century after penning the local ordinance. “It reminds us that America is a work in progress and that we must always fight for progress towards a more perfect union. Some commentators say that this has all happened very quickly. But in fact, the fight for liberation and freedom for gay Americans has been a struggle going back more than five decades. It’s a struggle that draws from the liberation movements of others dating further back.”
As gay-rights supporters celebrate the historic moment, such moments result from decades of lesser-known activism and turning points. Like other cities, New Haven oppressed gays and lesbians for years: A class-action lawsuit revealed in the 1970s, for instance, that undercover cops were stationing themselves outside Partners Cafe on Crown Street to lure patrons into soliciting them, then arresting them.
But New Haven has also been a center of resistance to that oppression, and gradual progress. Two decades later, in the 1990s, New Haven police began advertising for gay and lesbian cops and placed a lesbian activist, Kay Codish, in charge of the training academy.
Allen has been keeping that gay-rights history alive in New Haven.
He led a a group of about 30 people to the site of that first local legislative battle — the 200 Orange St. municipal office building, where the (then-named) Board of Aldermen used to meet — during an inaugural walking tour of gay New Haven last Saturday.
“That was our Stonewall,” he told the tour, referring to the June 28, 1969, police-sparked riot in Greenwich Village that sparked the national gay-rights movement.
That early New Haven defeat spurred Allen and others to found the first iteration of the New Haven Pride Center (NHPC) in 1996.
“It seems so innocent now. Something as tiny as domestic partnership registry in just the city of New Haven — to realize that had an impact on politics in the state,” Allen said after the Supreme Court ruling Friday. “To have that happen in less than 25 years. It’s an incredible emotional feeling to be part of this so far.”
Allen began piecing together facts for the walking tour after having a conversation with friends about the city’s queer history. He said he wants to make the walking tour an annual event to commemorate June as Pride Month, since most of the pride center’s events happen during the academic year.
“We realized there’s this tandem universe that’s going on, completely hidden from people, that is very important for anyone that cares about New Haven’s history to know that our community has co-existed since the history of the beginning of the city. Not always positively, but our history is just as valid,” Allen said. “I said, ‘All this stuff has been going on throughout the nine squares. It might be an interesting thing to walk.”
That history goes all the way back to the 17th century — with the first public execution of a person for being gay taking place on the local Green.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Puritans hanged William Plaine on the New Haven Green in 1646, claiming he had molested and corrupted the morals of more than 100 kids in Guilford. It was a “trumped up charge,” Allen (pictured) said.
The motives for the execution were murky and mired in scandal: John Parmelee, the leader of the group, married Plaine’s wife after her husband was executed. When she died, Parmelee married Plaine’s daughter.
The walking tour mixed the high-brow and low-brow, the personal and political, the queer and not-so-queer. Allen pointed out the Farmington Canal Trail as the group walked down Hillhouse, saying, “You can make this as gay as you want.”
A group of almost 30 people followed him to St. Mary’s Church, the oldest Catholic parish in the city, where Allen said he used to bring lovers for good-night kisses, before finding his husband. The founder of the Knights of Columbus, Father Michael McGivney, was buried in the rear nave of the church; the group has funneled millions into stopping same-sex marriage legislation since at least 2005.
Allen took the group to where New Haven police arrested bisexual Doors frontman Jim Morrison during a performance in 1967. Morrison was performing at the New Haven Arena on Grove Street and making out with a female fan backstage, when a police officer accosted and then Maced him.
Back on stage, Morrison cursed out police for their rough treatment and they arrested him. The musician later wrote a line in his song “Peace Frog” in reference to the incident: “Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven.”
An even more “salacious” fact: The men’s bathroom below historic Woolsey Hall on Grove Street has for decades been a popular cruising spot, for men to meet and have sex with other men, Allen said.
Bathrooms and bars were some of the only safe places gay men could “meet and greet,” he said. Other common New Haven cruising spots include Long Wharf’s commuter parking lot and East Rock Park.
“It was both thrilling and dangerous at the same time,” Allen told the tittering tour group.
He plans to head to Hartford’s pride rally tonight with his spouse to celebrate Friday’s court ruling. “It’s truly incredible,” he said.