Outgoing President Joe Biden awarded high honors to three champions of LGBTQ equality shortly after the new year. One received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, January 4, and two received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor, on January 2.
The Medal of Freedom was awarded to gay philanthropist Tim Gill. The Citizens Medals were given to Mary Bonauto, a lesbian attorney who argued the Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and attorney Evan Wolfson, a gay man who founded Freedom to Marry. The Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
According to a bio of Wolfson on Out Leadership, he crafted the foundational political, legal, organizing, and messaging strategy that ultimately triumphed when the Supreme Court affirmed same-sex couples' freedom to marry in the Obergefell decision.
At the January 2 ceremony, Biden also honored Republican former Congressmember Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and current Democratic Congressmember Bennie Thompson (Mississippi) for their work on the January 6 Committee that investigated the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Cheney was vice chair of the panel while Thompson was chair. Cheney ultimately lost reelection to the House of Representatives because of her work on the committee and her criticisms of former President Donald Trump, now the president-elect who will be inaugurated January 20.
"The most important title in America is not president, but citizen," Biden said at the ceremony. "It's 'We the People.' These are the words on which this entire nation is built. Not hyperbole."
Bonauto helped "secure the right of every American to marry who they love," a White House announcer said. She had been called "our Thurgood Marshall" by gay former Congressmember Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), starting her career of advocacy on behalf of same-sex marriage back in 1990 by working with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, now GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, in Massachusetts.
Bonauto fought to legalize same-sex marriage throughout New England. It was Bonauto's group that filed suit on behalf of seven gay and lesbian couples in Massachusetts in 2001, leading to a landmark court ruling two years later that made the Bay State the first to legalize same-sex marriage.
She later helped Maine's Legislature pass a same-sex marriage law in 2009. When voters repealed the law later that year, Bonauto didn't relent, and a second ballot initiative in 2012 made same-sex marriage legal once again, making Maine the first state to legalize same-sex marriage by ballot initiative.
Bonauto also led the first cases against section three of the Defense of Marriage Act, which was declared unconstitutional in 2013 by the Supreme Court before it was repealed in 2022 by the Respect for Marriage Act.
Wolfson wrote the book "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry" in 2004. Wolfson worked for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1989-2001, during which time he argued on behalf of Boy Scout master James Dale in the landmark case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), in which the Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts had the right to reject Dale due to his sexual orientation based on the organization's First Amendment right to freedom of association.
After that, Wolfson started Freedom to Marry, saying, "I'm not in this just to change the law. It's about changing society. I want gay kids to grow up believing that they can get married, that they can join the Scouts, that they can choose the life they want to live."
He closed the group in 2016 after the Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
The White House announcer said Wolfson had led "the marriage equality movement, gaining millions of people in all 50 states the fundamental right to love, marry, and be themselves."
In an email, Wolfson stated that lessons can be learned from the marriage equality movement.
"It was an honor to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal at the White House as a tribute to the decades-long work to win the freedom to marry, change hearts and minds, and prove that democratic engagement can prevail over obstacles and opposition," Wolfson stated. "We can apply the lessons of hope, strategy, determination, and love to the work ahead now as we defend and reinvigorate our democracy in the U.S. and globally."
Two days later, Biden awarded Gill the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Gill was one of the first openly LGBTQ people on the Forbes 400 list of the country's richest people. According to the Denver-based magazine 5280, Gill is the largest single donor to the LGBTQ rights movement in U.S. history, donating $500 million of his own money, which he made through his work in computer software.
"Gill is a visionary entrepreneur whose work has advanced LGBTQI rights and equality," the White House stated. "After transforming the publishing industry through groundbreaking software, he leveraged his success to secure key victories in the fight for marriage equality and anti-discrimination protections."
Other Medal of Freedom honorees included the late attorney general and Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-New York), former first lady, secretary of state, and senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York), U2's Bono, and former basketball star Magic Johnson, who is HIV-positive and an advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention.
Citizens Medals were presented to former senator and presidential candidate Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey); Dr. Frank Butler Jr., who set new standards for tourniquet use; former Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut); Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation; the late war reporter Joseph L. Galloway; former senator Nancy Kassenbaum (R-Kansas); former senator Ted Kaufman (D-Delaware), who'd replaced Biden in the Senate in 2009; and gun safety advocate Carolyn McCarthy.
Others who received the Citizens Medals were: the late civil rights attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; war photographer Bobby Sager; the late Delaware judge Collins J. Seitz; women's rights advocate Eleanor Smeal; the late Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, a victim of World War II-era internment of Japanese Americans; Thomas J. Vallely, who worked for U.S.-Vietnamese cultural understanding; Frances M. Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition; and Paula S. Wallace, who established the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Updated, 1/5/25: This article has been corrected to indicate that recipient Frances M. Visco is the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Updated, 1/6/25: This article has been updated with comments from Evan Wolfson.
Updated 1/7/25: This article has been updated to include some of the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, including gay man Tim Gill.
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