The map is a bit misleading, because it also should include Alaska, Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories. But this is a great day no matter how one looks at it. Today’s Supreme Court decision ends this particular battle and its sometimes baffling legal opposition once and for all.
The hashtag #LoveWins does feel like a bit of a cop-out in terms of the profundity of this moment. Some of the fears of the opposition are what make it momentous – we stared down traditional mores and prejudices and powerful social and religious institutions and won! But at the same time the decision and result just affirms them. Anyone who has been to a same sex wedding (at least in the U.S.) knows that it differs not at all from the variety of customs in opposite-sex weddings.
The already famous lines from today’s ruling:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family…In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
As this coincides with Pride weekend, there are going to be crowds at this famous corner of Castro and Market Streets with The Flag flies. I choose to contemplate it quietly with a photo from last week.
This was never a self-serving fight – all my relationships with marriage potential have been opposite-sex relationships – but it has nonetheless been a deeply personal one since it entered my consciousness almost 25 years ago. Now the perhaps even tougher work of getting job and health non-discrimination begins. This includes the needs of transgender folks (something which seems to at times splinter the LGBTQ movement into separate letters), and going up against the new and nasty wall of so-called “religious freedom” in getting employment protection. And there is a whole hemisphere of the planet where sexual minorities have no protections and face mortal danger.
There will also be time to enjoy the shadenfreude of the opposition on today’s ruling. But for today, we can be a little sentimental and simply say that #LoveWins.
