Overnight In 10 Years: The Long Fight for LGBTQ Rights In Delaware

Just 10 years ago in Delaware it was legal to discriminate against someone because they were gay. A landlord could refuse to rent to you, you could be denied insurance, and you could show up to work to find that you were fired simply for who you loved. That was the reality. The LGBTQ community didn't gain legal protections in our state until 2009, when the General Assembly passed landmark legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Within four years of that law's passage, Delaware had passed civil unions, marriage equality, and protected gender identity, and to some the changes may have seemed to happen basically overnight. But in reality the fight for equal rights was a decade-long process where lawmakers and advocates ran up against bigotry and hatred at every turn. This is the story of that struggle, as told by three people who were intimately involved with the process right from the very beginning.