Senate Bill 121, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in a variety of areas such as employment, housing, and insurance, passed the General Assembly on Wednesday and will be signed by the Governor. Its passage took over a decade.
Along with Representative Bill Oberle, no one has spent more time over the last decade on this issue than my friend Drew Fennell. I’ve known Drew for probably fifteen years. She and her partner Lisa Goodman were the first people to tell me that I should marry my now-wife Michele, after I brought her to their house for a dinner party. I believe Drew’s exact statement was “Matt, she is the real deal, please don’t screw this one up.” And not only were Drew and Lisa at our wedding, they will forever have the distinction of bringing us a plate of meatballs just as the caterers were starting to put the food away before we had gotten anything to eat.
Others will write the official history of SB 121’s passage. But I am convinced that a turning point came when Drew testified on the floor of the House of Representatives back in 2001. Very few legislators knew that Drew was a lesbian, and she didn’t fit any of the stereotypes. She had kids, talked about her former husband who was a local minister, and as part of her advocacy for the state’s ACLU chapter, had warm personal relationships with just about every elected official in Dover, including some who had made venal public statements about the gay community. I knew what was coming when Drew took the floor in 2001, so I was watching as she started with her usual calm and erudite explanation of the bill, and then dropped a bombshell by discussing her own life and her own family on the floor of the House.
I could read the expressions on the faces of at least a dozen legislators: “Drew Fennell is gay? How can that be? She seems so…nice.” The bill passed the House that year for the first time, by a single vote. It ended up taking eight more years to get it to the floor of the Senate, and after Drew’s dramatic testimony in 2001, she became the bill’s most visible advocate. A big part of that advocacy job involved participating in scores of meetings with opponents of the bill who, sometimes with the best intentions and in the friendliest tone of voice, looked her in the eye and spoke about the way she lived her life in ways that had to have brought her near tears. But she pressed on, and this week it all paid off.
Drew called me from her car on the way home Wednesday night after the bill had passed. We talked about the hours-long debate in the State Senate, about how the entire tenor of the debate around the bill had changed in the last eight years. The witnesses who opposed the bill had tried to be respectful. I thought at least one opponent of the bill, Senator Colin Bonini, had demonstrated compassion and grace in arguing for a position that was ultimately wrong. There are many things and many people who have contributed to this change in the overall tone, but I think Drew has been a big part of it.
I asked her on the phone what it felt like to finally accomplish something that she would be able to proudly tell her grandchildren about. She said she would think about that after she had a Mojito or two. Drew, you have earned it.
