RSS
Home
Georgetown Law grad to lead GLAAD
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Two months from now, Jarret T. Barrios will begin serving as the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation League) president. Mr. Barrios graduated from Georgetown Law after completing his undergraduate work at Harvard.
Mr. Barrios brings with him an impressive history, including service in both the private and public sectors.
He sees this time as a transformative one in American politics. "We're making progress toward equality, but we'll only achieve full equality if we change hearts and minds… We're working for the day when every one of us is accepted, respected and valued for the contributions we make to this country. It's an ambitious goal, but I know we can do it." Read more here.
Mr. Barrios has the savvy to realize that imposing laws on a free citizenry is hardly the best method for transforming a culture. Only once hearts and minds have changed will the laws follow suit. The law is but codification of public opinion, to recall Thomas Jefferson.
Perhaps most significant at this crossroads is the battle to legalize same-sex marriage. Commentators have drawn every parallel between it and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, though the comparison does not hold in a key respect. Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage apply universally. Neither straight male nor gay male may marry another male, and gay males are not barred from marrying females. Jim Crow laws deliberately singled out racial minorities for an odious oppression. At best, the disinclination to legalize same-sex marriage discriminates de facto against homosexuals, but not explicitly like Southern segregation laws did against Blacks. Perpetuating the parallel risks minimizing how fundamentally unjust the segregation laws really were.
Mr. Barrios is likely to do well advancing GLAAD’s cause, so long as he seeks to influence people first and politics second.
