Longtime Professor, Advocate Receives Prestigious Award for Work on Behalf of LGBTQ+ Community

When Michael Lawlor, J.D., talks to first-year students in the University’s UNCommon course, he encourages them to be their true selves. The class was developed so students across the University could explore critical issues facing the world, while reflecting on their own experiences and biases.

“Learning to be my authentic self was a hard lesson I had to learn 25 years ago, and I share that story with my students,” Lawlor said.

He tells them about when he was in high school, and he was captain of the football team and the prom king. He became a prosecutor and legislator but always there was an essential part of his life that he did not share publicly or with very many people at all – that he was gay.

When a newspaper outed him, “I was so worried about what people’s reactions would be – people who knew me from my work, people who knew me for decades in my hometown,” he said. “Would this somehow change everything? And it didn’t which was good.”

He saw that people knew him as Mike, their legislator, their neighbor, and their friend. It was then that he decided he had to live his life genuinely and fully.

“My story is similar to millions of people’s stories who, by living their lives, change the minds of people around them,” he said. “People who may have never met someone who they knew to be gay or someone who was in a gay marriage would say, ‘Well, you know Mike Lawlor seems like a normal guy, and he’s in a gay marriage.’ It’s the personal connection that creates awareness. It’s what I tell LGBTQ+ students: they are the best messengers. It’s important for them to share their stories.”

‘Vulnerable people are typically scapegoats’

Lawlor has been passionate about politics since he was a boy, and he said he has always cared deeply that all people’s rights are protected and valued. “Vulnerable people are typically scapegoats, and they have been throughout history,” he said. “Scaring people about other people who are different is a longstanding political tactic.”

Through 24 years as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives and as former Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, Lawlor championed civil rights causes on behalf of LGBTQ+ community, fighting for civil unions and gay marriage. He took on leadership roles in criminal-justice reform efforts, including establishing rights for crime victims, juvenile justice, bail, and drug policy reforms as well as initiatives that addressed racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

At the University, he teaches a new generation of students who plan to work in fields such as policing, national security, and forensics, discussing with them the importance of thinking widely, considering other perspectives, and being themselves.

For his lifetime of work on behalf of the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, Prof. Lawlor was honored by Lambda Legal at its annual Connecticut Cares event, one of the organization’s largest fundraisers that was attended by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, legislators, judges, and local luminaries.

‘It’s incredible to see how far we’ve come’

Prof. Lawlor said he was “honored to be recognized by Lambda Legal. It is so incredible to see how far we have come, from a country that did not allow same-sex marriage anywhere, to legalizing it in Connecticut, to the current efforts today. While there is still so much more work to be done and so much anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric to defend against, I’m optimistic thanks to the work of Lambda Legal."

“I think that in 10 years, there will be greater understanding about gender identity, and I think the young people, like the students at our University, will lead us there,” he said. “Understanding takes time, but if we learn about people and see who they are, that’s where change happens.”

“Mike’s leadership in legalizing same-sex marriage in Connecticut will forever be remembered for its historic nature,” said Lamba Legal CEO Kevin Jennings. “Not only was Connecticut just the second state to establish same-sex civil unions and only the third state to legalize marriage equality, but it was the first to do either without a court order.”

Prof. Lawlor married his husband in 2013 and today, he said, his life is “just as boring as other married couples. We have a 16-year-old son, a dog, and a house. We travel together.”

“We are kind of a modern family – my husband’s ex-wife, our son’s mother, lives down the street,” he continued. “I think that if people keep their minds open and get to know each other, they will just see people living their lives and not hurting anyone.

“After all, the first words in the Declaration of Independence are, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’” Prof. Lawlor continued. “As an American, you get to live your life and pursue what makes you happy.”