GAY RIGHTS

City Councilman Nicholas D'Adamo
By Margo Balboni
Rockport High School
Rockport, Massachusetts

In the league of capital punishment and abortion rights, the gay marriage debate
ranks as one of modern America’s most incendiary political issues. Since 1969, when a
police raid sparked public rioting at Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn bar, the gay-rights
movement has never been absent from the national spotlight for long (Cloud, 2003). In
over forty U.S. states, same-sex marriage has been outlawed or constitutionally banned
(Goodstein and McKinley, 2008). Since November 2008, California has served as the
main battlefield for gay-rights groups and conservative voters (McKinley, 2008). With
such sensational controversies occupying the headlines, it is easy to miss a story like
Nicholas D’Adamo’s.
In 2001, Nick D’Adamo would have seemed the unlikeliest of gay-rights
advocates. For the past fourteen years, the Democrat had served as City Councilman for a
conservative Roman Catholic neighborhood in East Baltimore (District 2, 2009). His
district was home to twenty-eight churches, and he himself was a faithful Mass attendee.
He had no record of promoting same-sex unions; in fact, D’Adamo had opposed a bill in
1993 to give health benefits to gay and lesbian city employees’ partners (Best Act, 2001).
Considering this knowledge, it might seem baffling that on February 22, 2001, the
same D’Adamo walked up the steps of Baltimore’s City Hall and introduced a bill to give
gay partners the hospital, prison, and funeral rights enjoyed by straight couples
(Ordinance, 2003). Politically speaking, it was a disastrous move. When the Baltimore
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Sun ran an article on the Councilman’s proposal, D’Adamo found himself bombarded by
a deluge of angry phone calls. His constituents were outraged; childhood friends called to
complain; D’Adamo’s own mother agonized over the shame her son had brought upon
the family (Olesker, 2004).
What happened? Why would a politician place himself in the proverbial line of
fire to further a cause that he had previously opposed? The day after his story broke,
D’Adamo sat quietly behind his desk at City Hall. It had begun, he told the reporter there,
with a number of gay constituents who had appealed to him for help. They told D’Adamo
of the pain of being barred from their partners’ sickbeds or funerals by family members
who could not accept that their beloved relative was gay. After hearing half a dozen such
stories, D’Adamo’s formerly black-and-white view of same-sex marriage was graying.
He explained: "I look at some of these couples, and you can see on their faces the love
they have for each other. And I started thinking to myself, 'Who am I to judge?'"
(Olesker, 2004).
D’Adamo’s solution was to create a city registry for same-sex partnerships that
would give gay couples key hospital, prison and funeral rights (Best Act, 2001). He knew
that his action would anger, disappoint or alienate his base of support. He was not
seeking political advancement or praise. He was simply executing his duty as he saw fit
to protect the rights of all Baltimore’s citizens. Most of the voters who had put him in
office opposed his action, but D’Adamo believed that it was the right thing to do, and he
did it (Best Act, 2001).
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Serving the public good by disregarding public opinion may seem at odds with
the American philosophy of democracy, but as President Kennedy wrote, elected
officials, “must on occasion lead, inform, correct and sometimes even ignore constituent
opinion, if we are to exercise fully that judgment for which we were elected” (p. 17).
Sometimes, these acts of courageous independence are needed to preserve the values,
precedents and liberties that define this great country. When an elected official is dictated
by voters to ignore his or her own sense of justice, a valuable piece of the American
representative system is lost. Americans elect representatives to serve the city, state or
nation’s highest good. Popular opinion may not always point in the direction of progress
and justice, and at those times it is the duty of elected officials to rely on their own
judgment and conscience for guidance. In John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, a
deeply independent Senator named Lucius Lamar remarked that the vote of an official
who constantly pandered to popular opinion “would simply be considered as an echo of
current opinion, not the result of mature deliberations” (p. 169). Councilman D’Adamo
was able to rise above the fear of public condemnation, not to mention his own lifelong
prejudices, to see clearly.
D’Adamo’s act of political courage never achieved the infamy of cases like
Massachusetts’s gay marriage ruling or California’s Proposition Eight. His bill sat in the
city’s Judiciary and Policy Committee for nearly a year while report after report was
written; then it was shuffled to the Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee,
where it remained for another 12 months. When it became clear that the legislation would
not pass, D’Adamo was forced to withdraw the bill, almost two years after he introduced
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it (Ordinance, 2003). He did manage to hold his seat in City Council. D’Adamo acquired
a citywide reputation for his refusal to vote the party or district lines on demand, which
eventually won him a degree of trust from voters. As he described, “People might not like
me, but they respect my independence” (Chalkley, 2004). He continued to serve the
people of Baltimore by working to combat crime, increase police effectiveness and
improve the city’s public education (Chalkley, 2004).
Yet D’Adamo’s brave attempt planted a seed in the city of Baltimore; it
introduced a discussion of civil unions that had never been officially opened. That small
seed finally flowered on March 17th, 2008. On that day, Baltimore’s City Council
adopted a bill expressing its support of marriage licenses for gay couples in the state of
Maryland (City Council Resolution, 2008). The Council’s collective statement stressed
that “denial of marriage to same-sex couples is the denial of a fundamental civil right”
(Council Bill, 2008). Controversial proposals such as gay marriage rarely succeed at first
attempt. It was Nicholas D’Adamo who paved the way for the new bill by taking a
courageous stand for an unpopular cause. He risked his standing in the community and
even his position to seek justice for a beleaguered minority. One can imagine D’Adamo’s
pride on March 17th, 2008, when he beheld the resolution and voted.