>> George Chauncey:
Hi, my name is George Chauncey.
I'm a Professor of American
History at Columbia University.
And today I'm going to be
speaking with Mary Bonauto about
the history of the marriage
equality movement and the almost
forgotten history of what life
was like for lesbian and gay
couples in the years before
they had any legal recognition,
what it was like to manage a
life together when powerful
institutions from hospitals to
family courts and probate courts
were required by the law to
treat them as legal strangers.
And I'm really deeply honored
that Mary Bonauto has been
willing to talk with me about
this. For more than 30 years,
since 1990,
Mary Bonauto has been the civil
rights director for GLAD GLBT
Legal Advocates and Defenders,
the phenomenally influential
Boston based gay rights
litigation group.
She's a recipient of a
MacArthur Genius Fellowship and
is indeed a brilliant legal
strategist who has worked on a
very wide range of social
issues, has a very 
capacious social vision.
That said, for all the other
work she's done, I can say as a
historian that the history
books are going to remember her
as the person who devised and
argued successfully the first
case in Massachusetts in 2003
that led to a state Supreme
Court recognizing that the
liberty provisions of the state
constitution required that gay
couples have the right to marry.
So she won marriage equality in
the first state, Massachusetts.
And then a dozen years later in
2015, she argued the Obergefell
case before the Supreme Court.
The case, which established the
right of gay couples to get
married nationwide.
There's a reason that she's
often been called the Thurgood
Marshall of the marriage
equality movement.
So, Mary, you've worked through
many, many issues in your career
as a legal advocate, from trans
rights to juvenile justice to
protecting queer students.
But today, we do want to focus
on your work on family issues
and marriage equality.
And this is a different kind of
discrimination.
And we're going to talk about
it in some of the other
webinars. It's not as public as
raids on gay bars or censorship
campaigns, but it's always
struck me that it's been a more
pervasive, even if less visible
form of excluding lesbian and
gay people, LGBT people from
the rights of full citizens.
It's had such incredibly
intimate effects on their lives,
how they organize their
relationships and their
relationships with their
children. And I wonder if we
could go back to 1990 when you
became an attorney at GLAD.
Can you describe just the
cultural and political terrain
for gay family issues at that
point?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Absolutely. So first, if I can
just set the table in terms of
the big picture.
So in the mid 1980s, there were
two really important things that
happened, one national, one
more in Massachusetts, and
that's where I was based.
The national one was the United
States Supreme Court, upholding
Georgia's enforcement of a
sodomy law only against same sex
couples, even though the law
was not written that way.
It was more broadly applicable.
But the thing that's important
for family law issues, among
others, is that the case had
been argued by looking to
precedents of familial privacy,
among other things.
And in the opinion, the court
went out of its way to say that
those arguments were, "At
best, facetious" and that there
was, "No connection between 
this relationship,
this, you know, what had 
happened that led to
this arrest and those family
precedents." So it was a major
stain on LGBTQ people having
families at all or being seen
as having families instead of
just reinforce the idea of
criminality, of being, you know,
an LGBTQ person at that time.
The other thing more locally
is, you know, in my experience
that LGBTQ people, like many
others, really care about
raising and nurturing the next
generation.
Not everybody, but people have a
lot of love to give.
And there were these two men in
Massachusetts who had gone
through the program, were
certified as foster parents, and
three children were placed with
them in the mid 1980s.
And The Boston Globe, not one
of its finest hours, did all
kinds of sensational shoots of
this, of the kids coming and
insinuated like, how could the
department of whatever or the
that department who handles
foster care, how could they
possibly have been thinking of
placing three children with two
gay men? And within a very
short time, the children were
yanked and Massachusetts
changed its regulations to say
same sex couples, gay people
were at the bottom of the list
in terms of what's best for
children and placing
children out of foster care and
into a family.
And that's what we ended up,
GLAD ended up litigating.
That did get resolved in 1991.
But again, reinforce that idea
not only that we don't have a
family, but that we absolutely
shouldn't have families. We
shouldn't have families with
children, that we were
dangerous.
And, you know, those kinds of
stigmas made doing legal work in
this area very difficult.
>> George Chauncey: You know, 
what you've said
really reminds me of
the longer sweep of this
historical representation of
lesbian and gay people, too.
And I think of the 40s and 50s.
It's all about depictions of
them as sexual creatures.
And obviously sexual culture
was important to gay and lesbian
life, but it wasn't the only
thing going on.
And you just see again and
again in the public
representations, both of gay
people that they're not seen as
capable of love.
In fact, it was one of the most
pernicious things said to young
gay people, "You cannot love,
you cannot be part of a family"
and I think you're bringing home
that as recently as 1980s and
90s, that was still a really
critical part of the way that
people were understood and
shaping legal decisions over
the lives of people who were in
fact in loving relationships.
You know, back in 1990, this
was way before marriage seemed
like a possibility.
Most movement organizations
were not advocating marriage,
they were focused at that point
on what seemed like much more
critical issues, frontline
issues.
And yet my sense is that you
pretty early on had people
coming to you, asking you as an
attorney to help them get
married. What were the
kind of issues they were
bringing to you? Why were 
they... why did they want that?
>> Mary Bonauto:
You are so right.
My first week on the job, I
started getting phone calls and
I received them regularly over
the years before I finally made
the jump to do that kind of
litigation.
But one thing the reason that
people called is because they
wanted to. They wanted to
marry.
They saw it was a choice that
everyone else had.
And they had a love.
They had a commitment.
They had sometimes been living
this commitment for decades, the
kinds of self sacrifice and
care of one another that you
would you know, that I think we
idealize as being part of a
family. And it's something that
they felt expressed who they
were and who they were as a
couple, and not just two
disaggregated individuals who
happened to be living together
or were roommates or something
like that or friends.
So that was part of it, and
that's always been part of it.
That's not all of course,
there are a lot of concrete
issues and ways in which people
were systematically
disadvantaged that also
contributed to these calls.
>> George Chauncey:
Well, so I wonder if you could
talk a little bit about that,
too. What are the kinds of
legal vulnerabilities that
people faced because their
relationships weren't and
couldn't be recognized by any
form of law.
>> Mary Bonauto:
So one difficulty people had and
it may not seem as accessible
now in the era of the
Affordable Care Act, but was
that it was impossible for
people to purchase a family
policy of health insurance.
So health insurance always a
big cost item.
And the idea that you would
have to purchase two policies or
two policies, one that covered
an adult and their child or
children and then another just
drove people to destruction.
I mean, this was a big outlay.
So that was something that, you
know, really has taken a very,
very long time to resolve.
So that's one thing.
But I will also say that
sometimes we would be dealing
with end of life issues.
So under our Medicaid laws
when you have a person who
needs to go into a nursing home
and most people can't afford
nursing homes, so Medicaid will
pay for nursing homes.
But the idea is after the
person who's in a nursing home
may pass. If that person owned a
home with their partner
and then Medicaid would have
put a lien on the house and
would foreclose on the house,
potentially thrusting out into
the cold, you know, the partner
of many years.
And that's a protection that
married people had that
unmarried people did not.
So that kind of vulnerability
and destabilizing influence very
concerning. I will also just
mention issues around...
Again, it's something that
seems so simple as a question of
just respect for people's
sorrow and grief,
but that unfortunately didn't
work out that way, is issues
around disposition of bodies
when someone died and give you a
couple examples of that.
You know, I have dealt with
many people who, unfortunately,
their partners, you know, had a
heart attack, whatever it might
be. I have a good friend even
whose partner died
and she found her partner on
the bathroom floor in the
morning and no right to call
anyone and say, here's what
we've agreed or she wants in
terms of where to go, her
service, anything. It didn't
matter.
They had to call the family.
Now, in that instance, it was a
good situation because the
family knew about their
relationship and was supportive.
But other times that has not
been the case.
And if I could even just give
you another example.
This preceded my time at GLAD
by just a few years, but it was
a situation where there was a
man who came out to his family
and the family did not accept it
and threw him out of the house.
And the father went into his
room and with an axe, destroyed
everything in his room and
closed the door to leave it
there that way. And he went on,
thankfully, to find a partner
and develop a happy and full
life, but became ill.
And the mother knew about
this, the father had passed.
And at the hospital,
the hospital says to the
partner,
the mother has to take the
body, that's the law.
And the partner, Kevin, at
least persuaded them to honor
John's wishes to cremate him.
So he was cremated, but the
mother took the ashes and buried
them next to the father.
And when Kevin came to us about
this and this was not me, this
was my predecessors at GLAD.
We brought a lawsuit to say
that, in fact, John had
expressed his wishes to a
doctor
and although it's true that the
family, the legal family
normally has rights in these
circumstances, priority that if
you've expressed your
individual wishes about what you
want, then that should be
respected.
And on that basis, we were able
to introduce into evidence the
notes the doctor took. He wants
his partner to have his ashes.
They are supposed to be put in
some of his favorite fiestaware
and definitely not to be in
the family plot.
And those ashes were exhumed
and returned
to Kevin for care.
>> George Chauncey:
And for all of us, people who
have lost parents or partners
that's just so powerful
what happens in those last
moments of life being able to be
with your partner, with your
parent as they're passing and to
be able to control possession
of their remains is so important
to us. And to have that made so
difficult and often impossible
because of this discrimination
and family law is very sobering.
And I want to ask you, many of
the things that you mentioned
are things that could happen to
anyone and did happen to anyone
at any time.
But we're also kind of brought
to a head during the Aids crisis
when suddenly you had thousands
of in the early days,
it's spread in many ways now.
But in the early days,
thousands of young gay men who
were stricken with this disease
in the prime of their lives in
their 20s and 30s, mostly once
they were diagnosed, almost no
one survived more than two
years. Many lost their jobs.
And so all these issues came to
a head of losing your job and
therefore losing your insurance
and not being able to get on
your parents insurance. Going
into the hospital,
what's going to happen with
remains to even talk a little
bit about what the things that
went on in hospitals when
couples relationship wasn't
recognized.
And then I'm just curious about
what your thoughts are about the
impact of Aids in making people
think about these issues.
>> Mary Bonauto:
Well, I will say that the impact
of Aids was profound in terms of
thinking about family issues,
because you had exactly the
situation you've described
intense vulnerability and not
being certain your wishes are
going to be respected.
I was a somewhat new attorney
in the 19... late 1980s and
literally took calls from
payphones, from people who would
call me and say things along
the lines of my boyfriend died.
His family is here.
They are taking everything out
of our apartment.
What can I do?
And as a result, one of the
things that I did and I think a
few other people did as
attorneys is try to make sure we
were reaching out as much as
possible to ensure that people
had wills about whatever little
they had, that at least they
could express their wishes
about what should be done with
it, and also to create
documents or call different
things in different states to
make sure that there was medical
decision making in place so
that if somebody was no longer
able to make their own
decisions, they would say this
is who should be making those
decisions rather than default to
the family. Now, of course,
sometimes the families were very
supportive. So I don't mean to
like paint with too broad a
brush here, but again, at least
giving that decision to the
individual. So it was very big,
but there were too many horror
shows for people not to get the
point that family really
mattered. And complementary to
the whole Aids crisis,
another thing that was
happening in the 1980s was
really sort of this advent of
planned lesbian families.
>> George Chauncey:
So you talked a moment ago about
wills and I wish you would talk
a little bit more about that
because my sense is that wills
were important,
people started writing them as
Aids crisis really focused
people on the fact that even a
young person could die
unexpectedly, but that they
weren't always providing rock
solid legal protection.
When you're talking about a
will written where one person
wants to provide their
surviving same sex partner with
things from their estate and
just talk about 
that a little bit.
>> Mary Bonauto:
Absolutely and yes.
And it is absolutely connected
to the Aids crisis, because if a
family, for example, discovers
on death or has always been
unhappy about their child being
with a same sex partner, they
could contest this and there's
more incentive to do so when
there's more at stake. But also
there was a principle at stake
I think for some people. This I
am the family.
You are not a family.
And so what that means is that
Wills could be challenged.
And two of the most prominent
grounds are that the person
making the will lacked
capacity. So you're talking
about somebody who,
you know, was ill.
And the question is, what was
their state of mind gets into
medical evidence and so on.
But you had to plan for that
vulnerability.
And thinking about that at the
time that you were even
preparing a will. The other 
issue was undue influence.
And again, that's rife with
options for insinuations about
somebody trying to take
advantage of somebody else,
especially when the family
didn't particularly know of or
if they did know of, didn't
appreciate the relationship that
was involved. So, yes, wills
were extremely important, as
were other medical... as were
medical decision making
documents and financial.
But still, we had to run a
gauntlet in terms of trying to
protect people with those.
GLAD had a whole program called
Living Legacy to try to get out
there and get documents to
anyone who needed them.
>> George Chauncey:
And then in terms of older
people who've been together for
a long time, Social Security,
pensions, how did that work out?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Not well. You know, again, under
tax and other laws, pensions are
for people, for individuals are
for people who are married, who
would have survivorship
benefits, not for partners.
And likewise, with respect to
Social Security, it's not
entirely... it is largely a
marriage based system.
When you start talking about
other adults, kids can get in
other ways. But yeah, it's what
that meant is like for Social
Security, we represented a man
who had been with his partner
since he was 18
years old and 60 years later was
still with him, caring for him
through his Parkinson's.
And when his partner died, he,
you know, feeling a widow, did
what the other widows did and
went to Social Security only to
find out that their
relationship did not count at
all. And on the pensions, we
had a very difficult situation,
really wanted to be able to do
something about it
on behalf of a man who had been
with a Boston firefighter for
the better part of 40 years.
And Captain Campbell, you know,
retired, came down with throat
cancer. And Martin, his
partner, because they were not
allowed to marry at the time,
took care of him.
And he had a lot of mucus in
his throat, had to clear it,
swab it to keep him from
choking and stayed with him
right through the end.
And at the end of this, Martin
not only lost the love of his
life, but he lost his economic
security because the pension
disappeared like that, because
there was no relationship that
the law had to attend to.
>> George Chauncey:
And it was impossible to go to
the company supplying this
pension and explain the
circumstances and 
have them respond?
>> Mary Bonauto:
No, it was not, because the
underlying laws were such that
your relationships were
invisible.
You were legal strangers, you
had no claim to bring.
>> George Chauncey:
So my sense is that in the 80s
and 90s, attorneys like yourself
all over the country were
scrambling to come up with
stopgap alternative legal
measures that could help people
survive some of these life
crises or weather them a little
bit more successfully.
One was domestic partnership,
which might be a way of allowing
someone to convey his or her
medical insurance to a partner.
I mean, talk a little bit more
about the kind of big picture
family issues, what happened
when a lesbian couple 
decided to have kids?
>> Mary Bonauto: Sure.
>> George Chauncey: 
It's so, you know, part of
it is, well, not so easy, but
part of it can take place.
But then what were the legal
issues there that you were
having people call you about?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Well, at least if you're talking
about a couple that decided to
from the get go to have kids on
their own, you know, the part of
the question is the law was set
up for biology, birth, marriage
and adoption. Those were the
markers of family.
If you didn't give birth to the
child, if you weren't married
and it wasn't an adoption, then
who is this other parent?
So that immediately meant that
let's say, for example, you had
two women and a child.
You know, was there a legal
relationship between the two
women? Those two points?
No. And was there a
relationship between each of the
adults and the child?
No, only one of them.
So that's immediately a very
difficult legal structure to
navigate. What does that, you
know,
parent who is not regarded as a
parent, like what's their right
to make medical decision
making, to make medical
decisions in an emergency?
Believe me, those issues arose.
Handle school issues.
Be able to attend school
conferences if somebody was just
too uncomfortable with this.
Lots of issues along those
lines.
And then, of course, it all was
most difficult and excruciating
if the couple separated.
And there was conflict and
so on, because in those
circumstances, truly, you know,
the fact that someone gave birth
was the trump card and the
children would really lose out
on the protection of another
parent.
And sometimes it was that other
parent, for example, who was
providing their health
insurance because that was their
job allowed them to do so, for
example.
So losing that relationship and
then losing the financial
protections, you know, that
makes it just too crude because
it was just a terrible
situation for everyone and
something that had to be
addressed and became 
a focus of the work.
>> George Chauncey:
And can I just add to that? I
can remember in the days when
that first became possible in
certain cities, the pictures
that were taken as people
walked out of city hall that
first day holding up their
domestic partners certificate.
And in retrospect, it seems,
yeah, kind of meaningless, a
piece of paper.
But it was the first time they
had some tangible recognition of
their relationship that that it
was valued in a way that their
brothers and sisters
relationships were valued.
And it's so powerful.
Those images still just radiate
the importance of this.
>> Mary Bonauto:
Yes, it's the difference between
utter invisibility and being
seen, if not in your full
humanity, at least in some way.
So, yes.
>> George Chauncey:
But it also had
some practical results, right?
>> Mary Bonauto: Well, it did,
depending on the place.
So, for example, you know, I
had an old friend who's in
1990.
Her partner lost her job and
the loss.
And so this woman lost her
health insurance.
And my friend wanted to be able
to provide insurance for her on
her job just like everyone else
can.
And suffice it to say, we had
to work really hard for that for
six years and convince the
union to fight for it and the
university to agree to it.
But they did. So domestic
partnership could mean something
if you made it and the
underlying laws permitted it.
But on the other hand, in
Massachusetts, where again in
the early 90s, Cambridge, 
Boston
we're really trying to think
about creating domestic
partnership registries with
some protections.
We ran into a real hurdle
around health insurance because
the underlying laws said it
needs to be a spousal
relationship, period.
And that fight wasn't really
won until we were able to obtain
marriage in Massachusetts in
2004.
>> George Chauncey:
And then there's the issue of
what happens when relationships
go bad, when a couple who've
been together break up like both
straight and couples... both
straight and gay couples do.
Straight married couples get a
divorce.
What did gay couples do at that
point?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Well, without marriage, I mean,
it's the kind of thing where we
would joke sometimes that one
of the benefits of marriage was
divorce. I hate to say it that
way, but there were rules.
You know, that property is
going to be divided equitably.
You'll look sometimes,
depending on the state, to the
contribution of both parties,
to the assets in the marriage,
et cetera, et cetera. But there
were no rules.
And what that usually meant was
if there was a partner who had
more financial resources or
more financial sophistication,
you know, they were able to
dominate.
They were able to really
not settle up to disregard the
relationship.
They had placed assets in their
name while the other person is
taking care of things at home
or running a small shop or
whatever it might be.
They were able to keep assets
that way, and then in the course
of any proceedings and there
were people like me and
others who had developed
theories that were not divorced
but that were based in like
dusty old trust law and so on,
to be able to argue about these
things.
But they would still, the more
precuneus partner was definitely
able to avoid any kind of full
accounting.
One big development for us in
Massachusetts, at least in 1998,
was that the state Supreme
Court affirmed a course of
action that many of us had
suggested and hoped would work,
which was at least to try to do
something in writing if both
parties would agree about
property and financial
arrangements. It's not the same
as being on a deed, but at least
it is something that could meet
the requirements of a contract
and be binding.
It's not the same as divorce,
still, not the same requirement
of some sort of equitable
distribution.
But it was something and there
were just too many people who
had been left behind.
>> George Chauncey:
So at the same time that gay
male couples were increasingly
worried and startled to be
confronted by the possibility of
one of them dying, lesbian
couples who were raising kids
together also had to be
worried about what would happen
if the birth mother died and
what would happen to her partner
and their child. I wonder if you
could talk about that a bit.
>> Mary Bonauto:
Well, let me start first, if I
may, with death, because there
was a very important case in
Vermont where a woman
had a car accident on the way
to the dump and...
the child's grandparents from
the deceased mother's side came
in and took the child. And took
her to another state.
But there was somebody at home
who was her parent who fought
very hard to get that child
back.
And one of the first things the
child said, this won't be an
exact quote was, 
"Where have you been?
Why did you leave me?"
Not at all of course what she
had wanted was horrified by the
whole situation.
That's an example of a story
that reverberated through the
community, that terror.
And, you know, likewise, you
know, coupled driving and
having a close call with an
accident and realizing that if
the birth mother, you know, the
one with the legal chips died,
that the other person would be
a nobody.
So it was very important to
think about solutions to that
And a woman named Nancy
Polikoff, now a retired law
professor really built on this
innovation from the West Coast
called Second Parent Adoption,
where again, you know, the other
parent would be able to adopt
while the existing legal parent
retained their rights.
And that remains a very
important source of protection
for people to be able to obtain
those second parent adoptions,
not just because you're
married, but including when
you're not married.
>> George Chauncey: How solid 
was second parent adoption?
Was it vulnerable to the kind
of...
attack that you have described
affecting people who wrote wills
and so forth, or is that a
pretty solid arrangement?
>> Mary Bonauto:
It is a solid arrangement.
That said, to my point about
couples not always being at
their best when they separate,
especially when there are no
rules of the road for a
divorce.
And because in a divorce you're
also assessing what happens with
the children.
There were examples and have
been examples of couples who've
had a second parent adoption,
and then one moves to another
state and disclaims the effect
of the adoption and seeks sole
custody or seeks to, you know,
to deny visitation or contact or
decision making to the other
parent.
So it remained contested.
And it's not free of
contestation now, but it is
legally supposed to be rock
solid.
>> George Chauncey:
Another complicated set of
issues arose when a couple
separated. And the question of
the relationship of the woman
who was not the birth mother to
the child. Can you talk a bit
about that?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Yes, and I certainly had many of
those cases over the years, and
they're very painful cases to
see
a parent not only turn their
back on the other parent, but in
a sense to turn their back on
the child.
And that very important
relationship the child has with
this other parent.
So, yes, in some of those
cases, you know, I was dealing
with situations where literally
either the birth parent or the
adoptive parent, the one with
the legal rights, would
literally say you're nothing
more than a babysitter.
You're an outsider.
I was always in charge.
You have no rights.
And what the
courts needed to do and the law
needed to understand is that as
a child experiences this, they
look to who loves them, who
cares for them, who's asking
them about school or helping
them with their bedtime
routines. And that that person
is very much a parent to them
who's guiding them and
supporting them and loving them.
And the law has at this point
evolved.
But we were involved in some of
the early cases to say you have
to look to some degree at
functional relationships.
Has this person been
functioning as a parent and did
the person with the legal
rights, the adoptive parent, the
birth parent, do they acquiesce
to this situation and support it
as long as it was convenient
for them, but only turn their
backs on that reality when they
wanted to move on to a different
relationship? And that has been
a struggle.
It remains a struggle to some
degree, but we were able, at
least to keep some parent-child
relationships intact.
It's a very important case in
Massachusetts in 1999 on this,
where we'd been losing for a
long time in the courts and the
Supreme Judicial Court turned
it around in a case that we had
and at this point, more than
half the states have such
rules in place where functional
relationships called one thing
or another have to be
respected.
>> George Chauncey:
Yeah, I had a student who was
born, I guess in the early 90s.
A lesbian couple as parents in
Vermont.
Each of the mothers had a child
and they were growing together
as a family. And then the women
separated and had a very angry,
bitter separation.
And my student's mother felt
she needed to take her away to
another place. And she
literally never saw her sister
again. There was no way, no
legal proceeding available to
them to establish some kind of
rights for these children to see
each other and to see their
other mother.
And it was just excruciating to
see.
And again, as you said about
divorce, it's an incredible
thing actually, we don't think
of it in this way, but at least
does establish a procedure in
which very complicated
relations, difficult issues can
be worked out with the best
interests of the child and both
parties being heard.
And it's yeah, some of the
stories that you hear from kids
of that generation are really
heartbreaking.
So you've described a bunch of
procedures that you and other
attorneys tried to put in
place, but also their
incapacity to really provide
the security that marriage did.
Could you talk a little bit
about how you started thinking
about marriage as the best
way to resolve some 
of these issues?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Yes, I did think that having
access to marriage was extremely
important. Number one, I was
hearing it from people directly
about why this mattered to
them, whether it was because
this is the person I love and
what you do, what I want to do
because I love this person, is
marry them like my siblings
have, like my coworkers do,
like my cousin does whatever it
might be like. It's not a
surprising aspiration for
someone to have.
Doesn't mean everybody has it,
but some people do.
And when I was talking to
people about marriage, when they
were nervous about it and I
made...
some decisions that perhaps
this is the way to go,
maybe game on.
And I reminded people like this
is a choice for individuals,
normally not for the government
to make, to tell you you can't
marry the person you choose to
love and commit to for your
life, ideally.
And not only that, but that
whole way there's a gateway of
protections here and
responsibilities that really
help to stabilize and support
people in all kinds of ways they
cannot anticipate.
So, you know, we've had issues
of workers compensation where
somebody's injured or killed on
a job and non-marital partner,
no protection's there, spouse,
absolutely protections there.
You know, Social Security, you
can't contract your way into
Social Security.
It doesn't exist that way.
You can't contract your way
into different tax arrangements.
So when you start thinking
about
breaking down these issues,
the only way to really provide
the protection and security and
really recognition that this is
my family
for some people was to marry.
And I will say for myself as an
attorney at GLAD, you know, I
really was experiencing the
civil rights dimension of this,
that there were lots of people
who were like, yeah, you're all
good and we love you but no
way can you join the Boy Scouts
and no way should you gay
people being in the military and
absolutely forget about it with
marriage. And you start
recognizing that there's some
themes here and that by telling
LGBTQ people you're not
qualified to marry, no matter
how long you've been together
and no matter what your
commitment was really a
statement about our lack of
equal citizenship that had to
be addressed because it was
affecting our lives more
generally as well.
>> George Chauncey:
You know, you've sometimes
spoken to me about the power of
marriage, just as a word about
communicating the compelling
significance of a relationship.
Can you talk about that a bit?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Absolutely. I mean, we see now
because we have marriage that
there is this unquestioned
assumption that your spouse has
a right to be by your side in
in emergency.
Absolutely. And there is such
relief for people about that.
But pre marriage, among the
many examples, one that really
stands out in my mind 
arose in Florida.
And it involved these two women
who had been together 21 years.
Together they had fostered 22
children.
And they were on a trip,
they left from Miami.
A little cruise with three of
their children.
And while they were out at sea,
one of them had a stroke or
something like a brain aneurysm
had to be flown off to 
Jackson Memorial Hospital.
And the partner arrived
the children arrived.
They knew this was terribly
serious.
They tried to get information,
could not get it.
They were kept waiting despite
repeated requests, waiting for
over eight hours to get any
information at all.
And it was only when the
woman's sister showed up that
they were finally able to come
in and have any time
with their mom, with their
partner before she passed.
And that is excruciating
for people and
one of the staff at the
hospital even said to the
partner, you're in an anti gay
city.
You're in an anti-gay state.
And that was supposed to
suffice as an explanation.
>> George Chauncey:
And did they have any other kind
of legal documentation of their
relationship?
>> Mary Bonauto:
They absolutely did.
And in fact, the power of
attorney was faxed
to the hospital and was still
disregarded.
And the idea that you have to
count on the kindness of
strangers. The basic humanity
of strangers is what I think
also continues to terrify
people
that prejudice can take over.
>> George Chauncey: Whereas to 
be able to say, you're married,
we're married. I need to go
there and be with my spouse.
It's just compelling and taken
instantly as providing 
you that right.
>> Mary Bonauto: Not foolproof,
but a lot better protection.
>> George Chauncey:
A lot better, yes.
So obviously you played an
absolutely central role in the
long campaign for marriage
equality.
Were one of the first attorneys
to really decide that this was
going to be a goal for
yourself, that you thought it
was important for lesbian gay
couples to have this right.
And if we think of that
movement as lasting roughly 20
years, it actually lasted
longer.
But if we start with the Hawaii
case in the mid 90s and then the
case that you filed in Vermont
a little bit later in the 90s,
going all the way up to
Obergefell to being decided by
the Supreme Court in 2015, kind
of talking about a 20 year
period there. And I wonder when
you first started thinking about
marriage. A, when did you first
start thinking about 
marriage as a goal and...
when couples didn't have any
kind of legal recognition,
how did you think you were
going to go from there to
actually winning the right to
marry?
That's a pretty huge leap.
It's there now, we all kind of
take it for granted.
But just ten years ago and
certainly 20 years ago, it was
almost unthinkable.
How did you think it and how
did you think we were 
going to get there?
>> Mary Bonauto: There are a
few answers to that question.
I mean, one is when I came to
GLAD in 1990, even though we
had, you know, had a very
tumultuous decade in the 80s.
But again, a lot of silver
linings there in terms of people
understanding we had to fight
for our families.
And there were some cases that
were won in the 1980s that did
not exist in the 1970s.
So by the time 1990 rolled
around and I started at GLAD and
I started in part because
Massachusetts became the second
state in the nation to enact a
non-discrimination law based on
sexual orientation after a 17
year legislative fight, I felt
like we were on a roll.
I felt like things were
different from how they had been
5 or 10 years ago myself in my
own life.
And I really believe that once
people knew more about us, they
would find that we had
more in common than you would
think. So I had enormous
optimism.
Maybe it was being in my 20s, I
don't know.
But I had enormous optimism.
But then I also just really
felt the humanity of it all.
And so for me, in terms of
really getting focused on it,
like from the time I received
that first call, I didn't say,
"Oh, marriage is unattainable."
I didn't say, "That's silly."
I didn't say any of that. I
said, I get it, I understand
and this is not the right time.
You know, we are in the middle
of a referendum process about
our non-discrimination law.
People are having a hard time
coping with us having legal
rights to contest
discrimination. Let's get
through that. Let's get through
a few other things and see if we
can make, you know, make more
of a fight on the family side.
So I felt like it was partly
like that we would get there,
but we were not there and ready
to make that fight yet.
And I will also say, like, I
encourage people not to bring
lawsuits. I encourage people to
think about raising this issue
as a matter of public policy in
the legislature
and not that many of them did.
And what changed my mind about
it being the time to move was
the Hawaii Supreme Court
decision in 1993 from the State
Supreme Court because these
three couples loved each other,
wanted to get married and had
been turned away.
A lower court had turned them
away, and the Hawaii Supreme
Court said no, that complaint
should not have been dismissed
at a bare minimum, the
states a claim of sex
discrimination and that means
this exclusion has to be
justified under our state
constitution. And...
I remember receiving from
people like two pages or three
pages from the opinion that
listed all the kinds of
protections and rights that
come with marriage.
That was sort of like it was
educational for people to just
see like, whoa, I didn't
realize there were all these
protections for it because of
course people will not married
themselves, so they would not
have known.
And I just saw if a court
can get this because I didn't
think a court would 
appreciate this at that time,
that we shouldn't lose this
opportunity.
So I didn't file a case
immediately, but I definitely
tried in my way to support the
Hawaii litigation as it
continued, supported the
effort, and helped really
further the effort to educate
people about what marriage was,
why it's a fundamental right,
how it had changed over time,
you know, exclusions based on
race being, you know, not the
same, but really illustrative
to say, yeah.
Sometimes a state draws a line
about who can participate in
marriage in the wrong place,
and it's drawn the wrong line
here. There is no justification
for this.
Like, look at tradition.
Okay, tradition. Nice.
But like, what's the reason for
continuing this tradition?
What is the reason that same
sex couples alone have to be
excluded? You know, sometimes
people have a philosophical idea
about the real purpose of
marriage is, you know,
procreation and raising of
children. Yes, fine.
You know, people want to do
those things.
Terrific. But it's not
enforced.
You know, it's not like there's
a mandate to have a marriage, to
have a marriage with children.
>> George Chauncey:
You don't have a fertility check
before you get married.
>> Mary Bonauto:
Indeed. Far from it.
And you had you know, we had
fun with this one in terms of
whatever. We had examples,
certainly of people in their 70s
and 80s who were marrying at
those ages because of love, not
because they thought they were
going to have a set of children.
So in one way or another, when
you looked at the rationales,
they really seem born more of
habit.
And a lot of assumptions about
LGBTQ people rather than really
how the state police the
boundaries of marriage.
So, you know, I was on the
road talking about these things
and trying to give people hope
that this actually was doable.
And there are a lot of people
who wanted to hear that and
needed to hear that. Of course,
there are people who completely
oppose this. They wanted to
start from scratch, have a new
system for how you think about
families and supporting
relationships and children.
And I think those efforts are
also important to do.
I think the more the government
can do to like, help people live
the lives they want to live and
have their families be secure is
a good thing. But I also just
felt like right now that's
marriage and so I can do some
of both.
But marriage is absolutely part
of it.
>> George Chauncey:
After Hawaii, the next big case
was the case that you and a
couple of colleagues filed in
Vermont
and I wonder why you chose
Vermont.
And what do you think the
significance of the 
Vermont case was?
>> Mary Bonauto:
We filed myself, Beth Robinson,
Susan Murray filed this case in
Vermont because, again, there
have been a real interest in
bringing forward litigation and
figuring out some way to get to
marriage in Vermont.
But it really was also an
outgrowth of Hawaii.
The whole...
The people who oppose this,
all of them were very focused
on Hawaii.
And we really also felt like we
needed to have another state to
show this wasn't just a one off
in Hawaii, that this is
something that other people in
the nation want it as well.
So that was part of why we
filed.
And one similarity between
Hawaii, Vermont, my case in
Massachusetts and so on from
there was that these cases were
based on the state
constitution. And that's
extremely important because in
our federalist system, the idea
is that states can do some
experimentation and that that
experimentation is valuable to
the nation as a whole and
understanding the experiences
of states.
And when a case is
decided under the state
constitution and the ordinary
course, it's not reviewable by
the U.S. Supreme Court.
So that allowed us to lower the
stakes to some degree about a
decision for a period of time.
And the Vermont litigation
was a phenomenal experience
working with these people and
with our three plaintiff
couples. And, you know, again,
ordinary Vermonters who wanted
this to happen for them, for
their relationships, their
families. And one of the things
that's so interesting is that
the case was argued by Beth
Robinson about two weeks after
Hawaii and Alaska had amended
their constitutions.
Now, in Hawaii's case, to say
that only the legislature can
change any definition of
marriage, Alaska is to ban it.
And I think that must have
influenced the court, because
the chief justice at the time
later said so in a law review
article. But it may have really
influenced the outcome of the
case. We thought we had lined
this up perfectly to be able to
win marriage and that some
state had to be first as one of
the justices had suggested, at
oral argument.
But the court decided
absolutely same sex couples are
entitled to the same rights and
protections under state law as
are available to married
couples.
But we're going to let the
legislature decide how to do
this. And that forced us into
the democratic process to have
this fight and that was very
difficult
but I think in the end, also
extremely productive.
And we ended up with the
nation's first civil unions, a
parallel status mostly to
marriage at the state level, not
the federal level.
And that was beneficial in the
sense of it provided protections
for people, but also for the
larger country to sort of wrap
their mind around the idea that
it was okay, it was okay if same
sex couples who had made this
commitment would be able to
share some basic state level
protections with spouses and
to provide a model of that.
So there were some really great
things that came out of there.
And for me, one of the most
meaningful parts of the decision
was toward the end of the
opinion in which the court said
that the decision was really a
respect for the common
humanity, common humanity of
Vermonters who aspire to this
institution. And I had never
seen that in a court opinion
before. To have us have us in
this aspiration be referred to
as part of our common humanity.
And I think that has
carried forward in the
following decisions.
>> George Chauncey:
So it was a real
turning point when Vermont state
legislature enacted civil
unions for all the reasons
you've laid out.
And yet you weren't satisfied
with civil unions.
Why not? A lot of people said,
yeah, civil unions are great.
They don't have all the
connotations of marriage.
Why wasn't that
sufficient for you?
>> Mary Bonauto:
It wasn't that it wasn't
sufficient for me, although it
wasn't it wasn't sufficient for
my clients who wanted to marry,
who aspired to be in that
institution that everyone
understood as a marker of
family and that had such power
in and of itself. And that
brought with it all of these
other protections.
And that itself would remove
the stain of saying, like,
you're identically situated to
any other couple who wants to
make this commitment, but you
alone are not able to.
So again, really speaking to
that equal citizenship point.
>> George Chauncey:
So a year later, in 2001, you
filed a case in Massachusetts,
the Goodridge case, that would
make history
two years later when
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court ruled for the first time
in the country that the state
constitution required that same
sex couples be allowed to marry.
Why did you choose
Massachusetts to file this case
and what do you think the
significance of that ruling was
for the longer term project of
securing marriage equality?
>> Mary Bonauto:
With respect to both Vermont
and Massachusetts, the state
constitutions were very clear
about equality rights.
In Vermont, it was phrased as
common benefits for all
families, among other things.
In Vermont... I'm sorry, in
Massachusetts, our Constitution
was penned by John Adams, and
there were multiple equality
provisions and liberty, as you
say.
And the decision was really
grounded in both.
And the court had to wrestle
with, again, this is not a
policy decision.
This is a question about
whether the state has drawn the
wrong line, like what is the
justification for excluding this
group of people? And the 
court found no justification.
You know, procreation was
raised, child rearing was
raised, conserving resources
was raised.
But, of course, if all of these
couples had sought to marry a
different sex partner, no one
would have said anything about
resources. So yeah, it was a
major, major breakthrough and
there was real heart in the
opinion.
But in the end, it was also
very much of a 
constitutional decision.
>> George Chauncey:
Yeah, I remember going to
Cambridge and which of course
Cambridge being Cambridge had to
be the first place that opened
the doors and let people get
licenses to get married.
And I interviewed people who
were waiting in line that first
night before the midnight door
opening and asked, "Why are you
doing this? You know, what does
this mean for you?"
And I was stunned to hear again
and again that people had never
thought this would really
happen.
And they'd kind of thought,
well, they didn't really care
that it didn't happen. And it
was like, you can't live feeling
this burden all the time.
And yet suddenly, when it
became possible, many of them
felt that they'd been complicit
in their own second class
citizenship before and not
having demanded this.
Many, of course, had been
working for it and trying to
win that right. But it just
had an electric effect on them.
Of course, it also electrified
the opponents of marriage
equality and you had 11 states
passed constitutional amendments
by popular referendum that
November.
[Inaudible] marriage to a 
man and a woman.
When you think back about the
political implications of that
marriage victory in
Massachusetts in '03,
marriage actually beginning in
May of '04, how do you
think about that, the sort of
the balance sheet of the
reaction that it produced,
you had to contend with and the
openings that it 
seemed to provide?
>> Mary Bonauto: Yeah, that 
was an excruciating period.
I will say those amendments
were very hard.
And they passed in states where
there was no chance of a state
Supreme Court ruling their way,
except with maybe one exception.
And these states, for the most
part, already had statutes on
the books that they passed
after Hawaii to say there shall
be no such thing as a marriage
of a same sex couple.
So it did feel like, you 
know, political opportunism.
But it was very, very painful
because obviously there were
people living in these states
who had the same aspirations and
they were being told,
"You're second class citizen, 
you're a second class citizen."
So all I could do, and I think
working with other people do, is
to try to turn all that around.
And for us, turning it around
meant making sure that we
preserved marriage in
Massachusetts because there was
a ferocious attempt, repeated
attempts to amend the
constitution that took three
years for finally more than
three quarters of the
Massachusetts legislature to
definitively reject any
amendment so that it was done.
And so many people in the
course, once they saw a marriage
starting in May of '04,
they saw what it looked like,
temperature came way down.
It will calm down.
See, everything was okay.
These are people who are really
happy, you know, and families
are coming to these ceremonies.
And people were starting to see
what it looked like.
And honestly, that kind of
thing made such difference
and of course that marriage is
a happy affair.
So one thing I could do was
preserve marriage in
Massachusetts. And then in
addition to that, you know, we
now had couples who were
married, but whose
marriages were utterly
disregarded by the federal
government because of a law
passed in 1996 to say that the
federal government would only
respect a marriage of 
a man and a woman.
>> George Chauncey:
Passed at the moment when it
looked like Hawaii might
possibly legalize marriage.
>> Mary Bonauto: That is 
correct. That is correct.
And so we actually had people
now who should have been able to
file one tax return as a
couple, people who should have
been able to get Social
Security benefits when their
spouse died, but who had none
of that.
And we decided to be very
deliberative about this and talk
to many, many people, reviewed
many, many surveys about the
kinds of issues people were
facing.
We thought about it very hard
and ultimately did file a case
challenging the federal Defense
of Marriage Act in March of 2009
with basically a very simple
theory.
State has one class of
marriages,
you're married or you're not.
But then this federal DOMA law
suddenly presumes to come in and
say some people are and some
people aren't for federal
purposes. And as we've been
asking all along, what's the
reason for disrespecting only
these marriages?
At the time, the way Congress
explained it was Judeo-Christian
preference for heterosexuality
and some other choice
statements. But we felt like we
had to challenge this.
And we had plaintiffs who had
tax issues.
We had a a state police major
who...
an investigator who wasn't able
to provide retirement support
for her spouse in various ways.
We tried to cover a number of
really important issues for
people, and we argued that case
in front of a federal judge in
2010 appointed by Richard
Nixon, and he ruled in our
favor. And then we were on
appeal to the First Circuit
Court of Appeals, and they,
too ruled in our favor.
And at some point,
a number of other cases were
filed as well, including the
Windsor case, you know, in the
out of New York State in the
Second Circuit.
And ultimately, the Supreme
Court took that case and DOMA
was struck down as a massive
equal protection affront.
And honestly, that changed
everything that allowed us to
reach back to the rest of the
country, because at that point,
the federal government had to
respect married couples wherever
they lived and you had states
then who which did not
themselves licensed marriage
having to accommodate married
same sex couples in their
states and adjust themselves to
the fact that the federal
government was requiring respect
for those marriages. So it 
was a real paradigm shift.
And, you know, as you know
that I think, to everybody's
surprise, unleashed a torrent
of marriage litigation that no
one was expecting.
>> George Chauncey:
Yeah, I want to come to that in
a moment and and maybe just say
and even before the court
overturn the Defense of Marriage
Act in Windsor, it still feels
to me that Massachusetts was
such a massive turning point
because you started having more
states first a trickle and
then more and more where the
state Supreme Courts ruled that
lesbian gay couples had to get
married. Then you had
legislatures actually moving
ahead, most famously when New
York State, which people think
of as a liberal state, but
actually has a very conservative
tradition around marriage
issues, ruled, voted to allow
lesbian and gay couples to
marry.
And you could see if you look
at the polling from the moment
of the Massachusetts decision
pretty steadily every year after
that, 2% more of the population
looked favorably at gay
marriage. You know, it's been a
tiny minority, a quarter of
people who'd support a marriage
equality a decade before
Massachusetts. And the numbers
were slowly changing and then
steadily after Massachusetts,
because, as you say, people
realize the sky didn't fall.
In fact, a lot of people were
getting very happy to be able to
get married. It wasn't
affecting anyone else.
And suddenly it had been easy
to argue against it as an
abstract threat to the sanctity
of marriage.
And then much harder when
people are actually getting
married and the reality of the
couple down the 
street being married.
>> Mary Bonauto:
You bring up a very good point
there, George, because one of
the pieces of strategic
thinking was not only to bring
cases initially only under
state constitutions and to
insulate them for a period of
time, at least from Supreme
Court review, give states a
chance to experiment and show
what this looks like.
But we also believed we had to
win in legislatures and we won
in a legislature in mass in
2007.
And we view that as a turning
point because then we saw more
states embracing marriage,
New York was certainly
notable, like very important
being that it is New York.
But in the New England area we
saw Vermont move from civil
unions to marriage.
New Hampshire and Maine all
approve of marriage
legislatively in 2009.
And then very importantly, we
felt like we also needed to win
at the ballot. You know, all of
these amendments were
effectuated through ballot
measures.
People had to vote on them.
We needed to win.
And in 2012, we won at the
ballot in Maine,
in Minnesota, in Maryland, in
Washington state.
And so we had that kind of wind
at our backs, so to speak, when
the Supreme Court took the case
that we knew
that we knew how to make the
case to people about why this
mattered and why it was right
and why it was okay.
>> George Chauncey:
It is remarkable after the DOMA
decision, the Windsor decision
overturning DOMA,
my sense is that both Justice
Kennedy, who wrote that decision
and I may be wrong, but my
sense is that you and many other
litigators thought it was still
going to be many years before
the case finally came to the
Supreme Court that would
definitively establish the
right to marry nationwide.
And it happened only two years
later.
I think Justice Kennedy even
said something about that from
the bench during oral argument
that he just hadn't expected
that. Why do you think it
happened so quickly?
Can you talk a bit about that
two-year period?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Absolutely. When the Windsor
decision came down and talked
about how the state had
disrespected and subordinated
these same sex couples who had
made this commitment to marry,
it was in language that was
broad enough
that really spoke at some level
to the fact that state laws
denying the right to marry also
disrespected and subordinated
same sex couples.
The Windsor decision talked
about how the integrity and
stability of families with
children was undermined.
That DOMA was telling... the
federal Defense of Marriage Act
was telling the children in
these families that they didn't
have integrity, that their
families were not like others,
and that was of concern to
Justice Kennedy.
And of course, that was also
true of constitutional
amendments and statutes that
forbade marriage.
So as some said, there was real
music in the Windsor decision.
And I will note that dissenting
Justice Scalia heard the music
too, and didn't like it. And he
said,
"This decision is so easily
transposable to the marriage
context or transferable,"
excuse me. But you could just
transpose the language about how
DOMA did this and DOMA did X,
Y, and Z and say that state
marriage laws did the same
thing and that logic was 
true and irrefutable.
And so we did see at one point
over 100 cases in the states
that a number of the LGBTQ
litigators were trying to pay
attention to and manage and
make sure we're adequately
briefed at the particularly in
federal courts of appeal.
Yeah. And what happened?
I mean, I'll just tell you
that, like, the first one was in
Utah in December of 2013, and I
think the state had not expected
a win at all for the couples
and they were not prepared to
seek a stay. And so people
started getting married in Utah.
And when I went out to visit at
one point later, because they'd
asked me to be involved in some
later proceedings, they had one
of those little pin that like a
pig flying with Utah over it and
a heart like, yeah, like pigs
are flying in Utah as a result
of that decision. And what we
saw is one court of appeals
after another ruling in favor
of the couples,
the Supreme Court decided not
to review some cases from a
number of different circuits in
2014.
And then the sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals, Michigan,
Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee ruled
against couples.
And at that point, the issue
was joined that we had a split
in the circuits and the Supreme
Court took that case named
Obergefell with many other
plaintiffs, including the people
who I worked with from
Michigan, Jayne Rouse and April
DeBoer, and a whole incredible
team of Michigan attorneys.
And, you know, they all went to
the Supreme Court.
>> George Chauncey:
And why then do you think
you won in Obergefell?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Why do we think we won?
>> George Chauncey: Yeah, why
 did you win again?
>> Mary Bonauto:
Well, I have to say that it
wasn't taking it for granted.
There were people who know
personalities on the court
better than I do who encouraged
me not to take it for granted
for a second and I didn't.
But I think we won, if I may
say, because we were right, you
know, marriage is long been
considered a fundamental right.
There's some very eloquent
opinions about this.
There's one that doesn't get
enough airtime that was written
by Justice O'Connor called
Turner versus Safley about
restrictions on an incarcerated
person from marrying
and the opinion says very
clearly, like despite the
restrictions of prison life,
this is still a public
commitment. You know, this is
still, for some people, a
spiritual endeavor.
There's all kinds of
protections and benefits that
come with the institution.
And there's, you know, usually
an intimate relationship.
So those things all spoke to
this situation as well.
In addition, of course, to the
truly key case of Loving versus
Virginia, which was the, you
know, the United States Supreme
Court striking down centuries
of bans on marriage as it was
put across the color line on
the basis that marriage is a
fundamental right, vital
personal right for all
Americans, and that you can't...
government can't tell people
they can't marry someone else
because of their race.
And likewise, we would say sex
or sexual orientation.
So, again, different
circumstances,
but the principles were stark.
>> George Chauncey:
The Supreme Court decided
Obergefell and Windsor before it
on the legal basis, just as
Massachusetts had, and all the
other states. And yet that we
can see a tremendous cultural
shift in response to those
cases.
And I want to go back to
something we talked about
before, which is the law's
recognition of the humanity of
gay people, their capacity to
form loving relationships with
one another, but indeed the
larger public's recognition of
that capacity.
And I wonder if you could just
talk a bit, the legal issues
aside, how do you think we...
How can we account 
for the dramatic
change we've seen in public
opinion in the last 
15 or 20 years?
>> Mary Bonauto: There's a 
great deal that goes into that.
But I think there's no
discounting the time that people
have had to process the
experience of knowing LGBTQ
people, people who marry,
attending those weddings, you
know, in their workplaces,
making adjustments to the fact
that people are not outsiders
anymore.
They're married couples
and you treat them like others.
It's just the culture had the
experience to get to the point
where it could be confident
that...
it wouldn't change anything
dramatically.
It was really more people
making that commitment, being
married, having that chance at
happiness.
And, you know, as people
started saying, including one of
my daughters at the time, love
is love.
And, you know, like, what's the
big deal?
Whoever it is, love is love.
And if that's what marriage is
about and it's of course about
a great many things depending
on who you are, that that
really, I think, helped carry
us.
>> George Chauncey: Well,
Mary Bonauto, I want to thank
you for talking about the
campaign for marriage equality
and all the legal
vulnerabilities that people
faced before their
relationships could be
recognized. And I want to thank
you above all for the
incredible role you've played in
securing those rights.
Thank you.
>> Mary Bonauto: Thank you and
thank you for all you do.