Triumph of Marriage Equality

Andrew Sullivan has a great commentary today on the marriage amendment vote in Massachusetts yesterday. I recommend that you read Andrew Sullivan's entire post (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/the_triumph_of_.html0. Since I cannot say it any better, here's a portion of Andrew's comments:

"This is history. What a privilege to have witnessed it.

It was driven above all by ordinary gay and lesbian couples and their families - not activists, not lobbyists, not intellectuals. Couples and their families. It was driven by a brutal, sudden realization that we were far more vulnerable than we knew. In the plague years, husbands reeled as they were denied access to their own spouses in hospitals, as they were evicted from their shared homes in the immediate aftermath of terrible grief, and refused access even to funerals by estranged and often hostile in-laws. This day is for them, for all those who were abused and maligned and cast aside because they loved another human being. It's also for all the lesbian mothers who realized in the last two decades just how much contempt and hatred existed for their care of their own children, who lived in constant insecurity, or who, at best, had to endure erasure from visibility. It's for gay families in Virginia today, denied dignity and protection multiple times over, enduring popular votes of meretricious contempt, and carrying on regardless, living their lives, building their relationships, cherishing their homes, caring for their kids, honoring their parents. And it's for the countless, countless gay couples throughout human history - who for so long had to live lives in which their deepest longings and loves were denied, crushed, ignored or threatened."

I also appreciate Andrew's comments for those of us living in Virginia where the discrimination against the LGBT community is enshrined in multiple laws and the state's constitution. I would also contrast the looks of joy and happiness on the faces of the people in the photos above versus the barely concealed tone of hatred coming from Christianists like Tony Perkins and others of that ilk that I commented on yesterday.