Raise a Glass: A Toast to Jack Baker and Michael McConnell

Some love stories also happen to be history. The story of Jack Baker and Michael McConnell is one of them.

More than five decades ago, two men in Minnesota asked for something simple: the right to marry the person they loved. The answer they got from the courts was no. The answer they gave back, through a lifetime of persistence, helped change the country.

A Case Ahead of Its Time

In the early 1970s, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell sought legal recognition of their relationship. Their pursuit became the first same-sex marriage equality case to reach the Minnesota Supreme Court. On October 15, 1971, the court ruled against them. The following year, on October 10, the U.S. Supreme Court let that ruling stand.

It would be more than forty years before the U.S. Supreme Court reversed course and recognized the freedom to marry nationwide. Jack and Michael were there at the very beginning of that long arc, making an argument the legal system was not ready to hear.

That is what makes their story worth retelling. The people who move a cause forward are rarely the ones who get to enjoy the victory right away. They plant something and trust that others will one day stand in its shade.

Why Their Story Still Matters

For those of us in the nonprofit and philanthropic community, Jack and Michael’s persistence is a familiar kind of courage. So much of this work is about staying with a cause long after the easy wins have dried up and long before the outcome is certain.

Progress rarely arrives on the timeline we want. Funders shift priorities. Policies stall. Public opinion takes its time. The organizations and advocates who endure are the ones who keep showing up anyway, convinced that the work matters whether or not they are there to see it finished.

Jack and Michael lived that truth for more than half a century. They did not wait for permission to build the life they wanted, and they did not stop pushing for the recognition they deserved.

Still in the Struggle

Here is the part that makes us smile. Jack and Michael are still at it today, and they recently celebrated their 55th anniversary.

Fifty-five years. A partnership that began when the law refused to acknowledge it has outlasted the very ruling that tried to deny it. That is not just a legal footnote. That is a marriage, a friendship, and a shared life that has quietly made the world more just along the way.

Their anniversary is a reminder that advocacy and love are not separate things. Sometimes the most radical act is simply staying, together, in full view, for as long as it takes.

Raise a Glass

So here is our invitation to you. The next time you are gathered with friends, lift a glass to Jack Baker and Michael McConnell. Toast their courage, their stubbornness, and the 55 years they have spent proving the courts wrong.

Wish them a happy anniversary. And maybe take a moment to think about the causes you are standing with today that the world is not quite ready for yet. History tends to catch up to the people who refuse to give up.

Cheers, Jack and Michael. Thank you for going first.