ART is a legacy for Andrew Wilfahrt worthy of his courage for equality.

A majority of voters in California in 2008 amended that state’s constitution to provide: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” One of the attorneys representing the gay couples challenging that constitutional amendment is David Boies, who fought racial civil rights battles decades ago in Mississippi. When a Federal Judge in 2010 found California’s state Constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution, it was a sweeping victory for David Boies (a heterosexual, liberal Democrat) and his co-counsel Ted Olson (a heterosexual, conservative Republican). But in a speech the day after that victory, Boies was humble and wise enough to invoke the memories of the many people who have fought the battles for gay civil rights “… for a very long time, at enormous cost, sometimes the cost of their lives. This result is for them, more than anybody else.”

Now in Minnesota, in memory of Andrew Wilfahrt, Randy Roberts Potts put a face on religious discrimination. The outcome of the Minnesota ballot initiative in 2012 may come down to whether enough people realize that discrimination within religious institutions is problematic, but outside religious institutions, in the civil context with separation of Church and State, it is wrong for our country.

Vote No! Vote against Minnesota’s marriage amendment in November 2012.

Thanks to the Internet, I watched the mother of U.S. Army Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt (Killed In Action in Afghanistan in 2011) speak at the first conference of OutServe.org (The Association of Actively Serving LGBT Military Personnel) after the repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. For some fifty years I have been a student of, and participant in, public speaking, oral argument, and advocacy writing. Lori Wilfahrt’s speech was elegant: graceful, dignified, and powerfully simple.

Andrew Wilfahrt’s legacy is just beginning because of the extraordinary efforts of both his parents for the cause of marriage equality. For military and civilian gay people, marriage equality would mark the end of the last major vestige of government-sanctioned discrimination in our country. The ideal of equality is baked into the soul of America. The Founding Fathers considered the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be unalienable rights, even though their own lives did not reconcile discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality. The reconciliation of the ideal in concept with the actual experience of equality has taken hundreds of years. Andrew’s legacy now contributes to that reconciliation of equality, through the speeches of his parents (multiplied on the Internet) and conversations around “Andrew’s Round Table.”

I can imagine that the spirit of Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt is dancing for joy to experience his mom and dad speaking with such elegant power. With grace and dignity, they are embracing positions of advocacy accidentally arising because their son (who happened to be gay) had the courage to volunteer for the military, and gave his life serving a country founded on the ideal of equality.

Thanks to the Internet, I watched the mother of U.S. Army Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt (Killed In Action in Afghanistan in 2011) speak at the first conference of OutServe.org (The Association of Actively Serving LGBT Military Personnel) after the repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. For some fifty years I have been a student of, and participant in, public speaking, oral argument, and advocacy writing. Lori Wilfahrt’s speech was elegant: graceful, dignified, and powerfully simple.

Andrew Wilfahrt’s legacy is just beginning because of the extraordinary efforts of both his
parents for the cause of marriage equality. For military and civilian gay people, marriage
equality would mark the end of the last major vestige of government-sanctioned discrimination in our country. The ideal of equality is baked into to soul of America. The Founding Fathers considered the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be unalienable rights, even though their own lives did not reconcile discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality. The reconciliation of the ideal in concept with the actual experience of equality has taken hundreds of years. Andrew’s legacy now contributes to that reconciliation of equality, through the speeches of his parents (multiplied on the Internet) and conversations around “Andrew’s Round Table.”

I can imagine that the spirit of Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt is dancing for joy to experience his
mom and dad speaking with such elegant power. With grace and dignity, they are embracing positions of advocacy accidentally arising because their son (who happened to be gay) had the courage to volunteer for the military, and gave his life serving a country founded on the ideal of equality.