This morning, the Supreme Court ruled to grant to all same-sex couples the right to marry. States may no longer refuse to issue marriage licenses, to anyone.
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. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
A few years ago, I was lucky to attend a talk given by Cleve Jones at Google. If you don’t know who Cleve Jones is, you may have seen him portrayed by Emile Hirsch in the movie Milk. Jones was part of Milk’s entourage. A leader in the fight for equal LGBT civil rights, Jones went on to also become a strong voice in defense of the people afflicted with HIV and AIDS. He’s, essentially, a legend.
I don’t exactly recall the date or even the exact year this talk took place, but the times were grim. Prop 8 had recently passed and the status of same-sex couples who had obtained marriage licenses was unclear, both at the state and federal level. Othere states were slowly legalizing same-sex marriages, while others refused to recognize such licenses. At the federal level, deportation notices were being issued against foreign spouses of gay or lesbian citizens.
Jones, like everyone, wanted this to end. But he was, more than everyone, sick of the petty fights and power struggles happening at the state and local level. He foresaw that this was an decisive enough issue to deserve being brought front of the highest court and hope it would void the states’ right to deny equality to same-sex couples. Today’s ruling fully validates this stance and is the latest milestone in an incredible turn of the public opinion when it comes to accepting the LGTB community. Jones said it better himself — I’m paraphrasing:
If you had told me when I was young that I would one day fight for LGBT people to get married and join the army, I wouldn’t have believed you.
He himself had to go from a time where gays were ostracized from the rest of the civil society to considering belonging in full and fitting into even the most conservative and bourgeois institutions of our society.
This ruling doesn’t just make the situation better for LGBT people, it makes the whole country better for everyone. It illustrates, if not justice, progress. Many discriminatory laws are left to fight against, and these don’t just target LGBT folks. But this is one less. Justice never comes fast enough. But that doens’t mean nothing happens in the meantime either.
All I know now is: Sunday will be one hell of a Pride Parade.