Author Chats
From His Washington Blade Vantage Point, Kevin Naff Recalls 20 Years of LGBTQ Advances
June 23, 2023
As an award-winning journalist, editor, and co-owner of the Washington Blade — the oldest LGBTQ newspaper
in the United States — Kevin Naff has had a front-row seat to a historic civil rights movement. To commemorate his 20 years at the Blade, he released How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality (Redwood Publishing).
The book contains Blade essays from the past two decades as well as new insights. In addition to addressing such landmark decisions as Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which respectively decriminalized consensual gay sex and legalized same-sex marriage, Naff touches upon the impact of cultural icons and religious leaders on the advancement — and, sometimes, the determent — of LGBTQ rights.
Naff talked with the D.C. Bar about the making of his book and what he thinks needs to happen to ensure long-fought LGBTQ rights remain intact, especially in light of the numerous anti-LGBTQ state bills that are primarily targeting transgender people.
Besides marking the 20th anniversary of your tenure at the Blade, what were some of your other inspirations behind writing the book?
It feels like we are at a crossroads in the [LGBTQ] movement. There were a lot of folks who were integral in the fight for marriage equality, who, when we got the Supreme Court ruling, left the movement. They decided that we had won. They moved on to other jobs. They closed down entire organizations, even.
I feel like there has been complacency, and so I wanted to kind of raise the alarm about that. We can’t be complacent because all these amazing victories could be rolled back.
Unfortunately, [the younger generation] is going to have to litigate a lot of these issues again — fighting for abortion rights, fighting for [same-sex] marriage. I hope this book can be used by younger generations as a blueprint for how my generation fought back.
You also wrote that after the Respect for Marriage Act was enacted, some people thought they had won the final battle and shut down some LGBTQ rights organizations. Which organizations are you referring to?
The big one was Freedom to Marry. It did amazing, groundbreaking work that was critical to winning marriage equality, but it closed. A lot of important figures in the LGBTQ movement either retired or moved on to other jobs after the marriage fight was over. I think it is a mistake to declare victory and pack up because our enemies are emboldened with their new High Court majority of right-wingers.
I think it is also important to remember that the marriage ruling was a 5–4 decision written by a Reagan appointee. That was not a slam dunk. I think it is tenuous, and it would not surprise me if it were overturned.
This book coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Lawrence v. Texas decision. Share your thoughts on that.
It was really the turning point. The decision came in early 2003. Prior to that decision, we were criminalized. You were, by definition, a criminal for being gay in many places. Those sodomy laws were used to deny security clearances, jobs, and so forth. Really, overturning those sodomy laws was kind of a critical next step in terms of the movement.
When that decision came down, I reread some of what was written by the Court. Antonin Scalia — and I don’t agree with much he wrote — was very prescient in his dissent, and he predicted that the Lawrence ruling would lead to marriage equality. And he was 100 percent right in that dissent. That ruling was an earthquake. It really changed the game. I have been on this book tour going to colleges — young people do not know what that case was about.
[Lawrence v. Texas] was about an adult couple having [consensual] sex in their private home. Prior to that ruling, we did not have the right to do that. Young people cannot fathom that. I write about it several times in the book because it really was such a critical decision. It’s important to understand what that was about, why it is important, and to beware because I think Obergefell is probably most at risk with this new right-wing Court. I don’t think Lawrence is safe. I think they would love to overturn the Lawrence decision.
You mentioned some young people don’t understand the impact of that ruling. Why is that?
I don’t fault young people for not knowing this stuff because it is not taught in schools. Not only is it not taught in schools, but they are also actively banning the teaching of it in schools. That is why my message in my talks to college students is “educate yourselves.”
If you are a part of the [LGBTQ] community, an ally to the community, or just curious about American history, you are going to have to go out of your way to find books like mine and others to educate yourself because they are never going to teach it to you in school. That is by design. Our enemies want to render us invisible in society. They want us back in the closet again.
I love that the book is a mixture of law and pop culture. Talk a bit about the process of how you
approached this book in terms of integrating so many different facets.
The scope of what we cover at the Blade is broad. We are known probably for our political coverage because we are in Washington, D.C., and the [Supreme] Court is here. We also cover a wide array of subjects and societal changes as they relate to the LGBTQ community. I wanted to include a chapter on pop culture because what we produce in this country out of Hollywood — movies, TV shows — [plus] books [and] music are probably [the United States’] greatest exports.
It is important that organizations like GLAAD [Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation] exist to fight for greater inclusion and representation in film and so forth. We cover all those developments. We cover the evolving attitudes in sports, and it is important to write about that because sports are a big part of American pop culture. We have an openly gay NFL player named Carl Nassib, which is a first, so we cover that.
I wanted to include a chapter that rounded up a bunch of the pop culture stuff, not only because it is important, but also because it lightens the mood a little bit. It can be a little heavy and even dark in places.
When did you decide you wanted to write a book?
I started five years ago. I pitched Vanity Fair on an article about my 15-year anniversary at the Blade. They liked it, and I had a back-and-forth going with an editor there. She wanted me to do an outline for the article. I did the outline, and I sent it to her. She said, “You know what? This is a really good idea, but this is an outline for a book, not a magazine article. You need to write a book.”
I thought, “Oh God, I cannot write a book,” so I put it away and just forgot about it. Then the pandemic hit, and I started thinking about it again. I thought, well, if I am ever going to write a book, now is the time. I started the process of researching old stories and going back through the archives. It was a [two]-year process to go through it. There were a lot of stories and things to review and research.
The LGBTQ community is broad and vertical because it intersects with so many other communities. That can cause a lot of infighting or lack of empathy among members. Do you get a sense that the LGBTQ community is not really advocating for trans people?
I do not see it as much as I used to. There used to be a big divide between gay and trans within our own community. I really think that changed after the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) fight in 2007. I write a lot in the book about ENDA. There was a big controversy in the movement about stripping out the trans protections and making the bill only for gays and lesbians. Barney Frank initiated it, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) kind of took a neutral posture on the bill. That caused a big rift in the movement, and trans protesters were picketing the HRC National Dinner.
The silver lining is that the trans community will never be left behind again. I think there was a reckoning in that moment, and everyone finally realized that we are all one, and we cannot break apart and pull them out of the movement. We still never passed ENDA, of course. In terms of race, when I talk to majority white audiences on this book tour — and there have been a few — I always remind them that when you look at what happened around the [equal] marriage fight, the polling on marriage didn’t change until other groups got involved with us.
In D.C. and Maryland, Black pastors were featured in some of the campaign TV ads. When those commercials started airing, it caused a lot of people in communities of color, in faith communities, to go, “Whoa, what is this about? Why are Black pastors supporting gay marriage?” That was when it really started to move the needle in terms of public opinion. The next thing that happened was that other groups — immigration rights groups and labor unions — started marching with us for marriage equality. That is what really turned the tide.
I always remind predominately white audiences that we would not have gotten where we did without the support of Black groups, immigration rights groups, labor unions, all these other groups that are allied with us. They were there for us, and so we need to be there for them.
