Former President Jimmy Carter confirmed this week that he supports state-sanctioned civil unions for gay couples, in response to a letter from two veteran Atlanta gay rights activists and questions from Southern Voice.

“President Carter opposes all forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and believes there should be equal protection under the law for people who differ in sexual orientation,” said Deanna Congileo, Carter’s press secretary.

Carter “favors equal protection for gay partnerships formed through a secular, civil union recognized by the state,” Congileo said.

Berl Boykin and Dave Hayward, coordinators of Touching Up Our Roots, a gay history project, delivered a letter to the Carter Center in late October, asking Carter to speak out against a proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Southern Voice asked questions about the letter this week.

Carter, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, remained publicly silent on the Georgia amendment, which voters overwhelmingly approved on Nov. 2. But his support for civil unions builds on comments he made at Emory University in September and during an Oct. 18 appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.”

Carter conducts an annual public forum at Emory, fielding questions from students. During this year’s event, Carter said he doesn’t “endorse” gay marriage, but feels gay unions “ought to be blessed by governments and by the general society,” according to the Emory Wheel, the campus newspaper.

Asked a month later by MSNBC’s Matthews about the fight over gay marriage, Carter responded that he has “never… been in favor of marriages between people of the same sex.”

“But I do believe that people who have tendencies to be gay, if they form an alliance or partnership under secular law, which is our law of this country, ought to be treated fairly and equitably,” Carter said.

The former president has also spoken out on gay issues in more general terms. In a widely reprinted 1996 column, he criticized “the politics of hate” as un-Christian.

“We must make it clear that a platform of ‘I hate gay men and women’ is not a way to become president of the United States,” Carter wrote then.

Boykin, an activist for more than four decades, contrasted Carter’s current stand to an incident he recounted from 1971, when he and other gay activists unsuccessfully lobbied Carter, then Georgia’s governor, for support in repealing the state sodomy law.

“I’m glad that he has shown the capacity to change,” Boykin said. “It would be nice if it went all way to a recognition of gay marriage as legitimate, but half a loaf is better than no bread.”

One of the few surviving organizers of the first Atlanta Pride celebration, Boykin said he wasn’t surprised that voters approved Amendment 1.

“There’s an awful lot of ignorance yet and prejudice yet to be overcome. It’s incremental,” Boykin said. “But Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day. Think of how far we’ve come. … I never thought I’d live to see the fall of the sodomy law here in Georgia [in 1998].”

‘Community builder’
Born in Miami, Boykin, now 60, moved to Atlanta in 1961.

“We were hunted fugitives when I first came to the city,” he said. “You had to look both ways when you went into a gay bar to make sure no one saw you going in, and there was no gay life outside the bars except for in some private homes,” he said.

But in 1970, Boykin helped organize a Gay Pride rally in Piedmont Park, marking the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, when patrons of the New York City gay bar fought back against police harassment. The next year, Boykin took on a larger role as chief organizer for Atlanta Gay Pride Day, which drew 125 participants.

For his role in creating the festival, the Atlanta Pride Committee featured Boykin at its Community Builder Awards, held in October in conjunction with Southern Voice’s Best of Gay Atlanta honors.

“Berl is, unfortunately, one of the few living individuals still remaining that was here during the early days,” said Donna Narducci, Pride executive director. “When you think of community builders, Berl laid the foundation.”

Boykin said he appreciated receiving the award.

“Getting a standing ovation is great. Who wouldn’t love it?” he said. “But the point is the work. That’s why you’re there, to get stuff done ...

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