With the political excitement leading up to and following the Presidential election, the devastation of the economy’s downturn, and the rollercoaster ride gay rights have taken, 2008 has been a year of unprecedented, groundbreaking moments in America. And in the middle of it all, lesbians and lesbian couples have been headlining the news more often than ever before.
10. Katherine Patrick Comes Out
Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts (and former Assistant Attorney General under the Clinton administration) received a surprise announcement from his 18-year-old daughter Katherine this summer. Katherine got both of her parents in one room during their summer family vacation and told them, simply, “I’m a lesbian.”
Having just graduated from high school and experiencing the added the pressure of being part of a very public political family, Katherine’s move to come out to her parents at such a young age was a bold one. Fortunately, both parents handled the announcement extremely well. Governor Patrick and Katherine did a joint interview for the New England gay publication Bay Windows in which they told Katherine’s coming out story to the public. Gay websites and publications weren’t the only ones to take notice. Many Massachusetts-based media, including The Boston Herald and The Boston Globe covered the story. Now 19, Katherine is in her first year at Smith College.
9. Nancy Sutley – Lesbian appointed to Barack Obama’s Energy Council
Even before the official nomination was made, major news sources including The New York Times, ABC, and The Los Angeles Times released information this week stating that Nancy Sutley was to be named Chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Sutley is the first openly gay person to be appointed to the new administration under President-elect Barack Obama. She previously worked with the EPA in the Clinton administration. Sutley currently works as Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment in Los Angeles. She is also a prominent member of the gay and lesbian community.
8. Amy Balliett – Behind JoinTheImpact.com
It’s true that you may not know her name – but I guarantee you are familiar with her work. If you turned on your television after election day or googled Proposition 8 since its passage, you’ve probably seen footage of some of the countless protests and rallies that have taken place across the country. Ever wonder how so many LGBT organized events sprouted up nationwide immediately following the election? The answer is Amy Balliett. Balliett used the site JoinTheImpact.comto spark protests all over America in response to Proposition 8. Using an incredibly organized site and a focused mission, Balliett has been largely responsible for the recent nationwide visibility of the LGBT community. The New York Times covered Balliett’s involvement in what they called a “Global Rally” of the gay community this post-election season.
7. Suze Orman – Giving the Nation Advice During Financial Crisis
With the financial crisis in America right now, who are Americans turning to for advice? That’s right, the trusted, tough-love, money-expert herself – Suze Orman. With her own show on CNBC, Suze Orman has been advising Americans how to save, spend and invest their money for the past five years. She has also been publicly out since 2007 and has commented on her personal frustration over not being able to marry her long-term partner.
With multiple books, regular television appearances (in addition to her own show), and regular contributions to publications such as O Magazine, Suze Orman is firmly entrenched in the mainstream, public eye. Since the financial crisis, her opinion has been sought by a variety of media, including CNN, the San Francisco Gate, and Oprah.com.
6. Melissa Etheridge – Prop 8. ‘shouldn’t have to pay taxes’ Reaction
We’ve all gotten fired up over Proposition 8, but Melissa Etheridge made news after election day when she posted a blog contesting her responsibility to pay taxes to a state that doesn’t offer her family the full rights and protections of every other citizen. Many major news outlets used quotes from the blog to headline their own coverage of Proposition 8.
With a wife and children of her own, Etheridge was able to make her statement personal, political, and angry enough to get some serious attention. An excerpt from the blog post reads: “Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.”
Read the full blog here. Etheridge has continued to be vocal about the injustice of Proposition 8 in other news media as well, including a very recent appearance on The View.
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5. Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson
Relationship Feel free to insert necessary eye-roll at my mention of the already over-publicized-in-the-tabloids relationship between Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, but let’s face it, the evolution of their relationship in the public eye is unprecedented for a young lesbian celebrity couple.
It is unclear when they officially started seeing each other, but throughout the second half of 2008, the two became more and more openly affectionate in public and began appearing regularly in tabloids with captions questioning whether they were romantically involved.
By mid-summer, the rumors had spread and even major newspapers and magazines were running stories on Lindsay and Sam. What is perhaps most extraordinary is that, of Lindsay Lohan’s romantic attachments, both the media and the general public tend to agree that her relationship with Sam has been the most normal and, at times, downright boring for the tabloids.
The couple keeps a fairly low-profile, appearing most often out together running errands, on set for one of Lindsay’s movies, or at one of Sam’s DJ-ing gigs. By now, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, People Magazine, The Advocate, and countless other media have covered the relationship.
4. Wanda Sykes – Coming Out
The passage of Proposition 8 brought gays and lesbians out in droves…and at least one notable celebrity out of the closet. Wanda Sykes made the surprise public announcement that she is a lesbian during a Prop. 8 rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 15, 2008: “Everybody that knows me personally, they know I’m gay - they know, you know? And that’s the way people should be able to live their lives, really…we shouldn’t have to be standing out here demanding something that we automatically should have as citizens of this country.” She added that she and her girlfriend married on October 25, 2008. The announcement showed up on gay websites across the country, but also made news on the LATimes.com blog, where many people praised her public coming out.
3. Del Martin – Death
After a lifetime spent fighting for gay-rights and supporting feminist causes, lesbian activist Del Martin passed away on August 27, 2008. Although she is recognized for having co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis and for her tireless efforts to further the gay rights movement, Martin was perhaps best known for her 55-year partnership with Phyllis Lyon. She and Lyon were the first same-sex couple to marry in San Francisco on June 16, 2008 after California judges ruled in May that prohibiting gay marriage was in fact unconstitutional. Martin and Lyon enjoyed three months of legal marriage before Martin passed away in August. The New York Times ran a detailed obituary and photograph of the couple the day she died, quoting her wife, Phyllis Lyon, as stating, “I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed.” You can read the full obituary here.
2. Ellen and Portia – Wedding
When Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi married this past August, they shared their special day with only a handful of friends, family, and…oh right, People Magazine. Just days after their wedding, the glowing couple appeared on the cover of the weekly mag, with the full scoop on the wedding and many more photos inside. With Ellen in a classy suit and Portia decked out in a fairytale dress, the newlyweds not only looked like, but were treated like, any other newlywed couple who appears in the magazine. Refreshing, cool, and probably eye-opening when it appeared on doorsteps and in newsstands all over America, the Ellen and Portia cover was a highlight of lesbian visibility in the news this year. Ellen also showed exclusive video footage of the wedding on her own show back in September.
1. Rachel Maddow – Became host of “The Rachel Maddow Show”
She’s possibly the smartest, wittiest woman on television. Rhodes Scholar, Oxford Graduate, political commentator and television news anchor Rachel Maddow has been hosting her own radio show and appearing regularly on MSNBC for the past three years. This year, when MSNBC made her host of her own nightly news program, The Rachel Maddow Show, she became the first openly gay prime-time news anchor in American television history. And since then, Americans – and lesbians everywhere – have taken notice.
Her opinion was sought throughout the Presidential campaign, in the wake of the election, and in response to the passage of Proposition 8. Politically liberal, deliciously androgynous and unbelievably intelligent, Maddow is the total package. The Los Angeles Timeshas called her “the belle of the ball” for this media cycle. Other major publications, including The New York Times, have noted the almost unprecedented overnight success of her MSNBC show, which doubled the nighttime ratings for the station within the first few episodes on the air. If you haven’t seen her yet, you don’t know what you’re missing.
