Gay rights pioneer Del Martin, wife of Phyllis Lyon, passed away yesterday at UCSF Hospital in San Francisco. Together for 55 years, but married for only two months, Martin and Lyon were a shining example of the longevity and stability that same-sex couples are capable of.
Martin and Lyon first met in Seattle in 1950, and purchased a home together in San Francisco in 1955, where they lived together until Ms. Martin's death yesterday. Martin and Lyon were amongst the founders of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1955, the first lesbian rights organization in the United States.
In addition to the DOB, the list of firsts attributable to Martin and Lyon is both lengthy and impressive. Between, they were the first two editors of the publication Ladders, the monthly magazine of the DOB, which championed women's issues long before NOW existed. Lyon and Martin were the first women to insist on receiving a couple's discount on the NOW membership, and Martin was the first out lesbian on the NOW board. They helped to found the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, and Martin was a tireless advocate in the fight against domestic violence.
In her later years, Martin became a voice for aging GLBTs, who are often invisible in both the elder and the GLBT communities. And, finally, on June 16, 2008, Martin and Lyon became the first couple legally married in the State of California.
RIP, Ms. Martin. All families, of all genders, are better off because the trails you blazed, and your refusal to accept that the status quo is immutable. Through activism, and through example, you and your wive helped, time and time again, to prove that the values common to all families are the true family values we should be celebrating, not the false black and white choices presented to us by the Right.
While I will never have the chance personally to thank you, I thank you in spirit. From a scared pre-teen growing up in a Fundamentalist house in rural Massachusetts to an out, proud, gay man who refuses to change pronouns or to not talk about my life, I know that my life and the lives of so many others are better becuase you had the ovaries to stand up and say "Enough" in 1955.
From the bottom of my heart, Godspeed.
(further reading on Ms. Martin: http://www.eqca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuLRJ9 MRKrH&b=4445141)
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