The Unlikely Triumph Of Marriage Equality

I'm still pinching myself. What happened yesterday didn't get much press, but it's an earthquake. It was the day that marriage equality came to America for good. A reader exults:

I fully expect that the social right will react just as you predict, claiming that only a popular vote could give gay marriage genuine legitimacy. But the fact of the matter is that there have been multiple popular referendums here in Massachusetts on the issue, in the form of elections to the Legislature. If there were really a hidden swell of opposition, presumably it would have punished the politicians who supported gay marriage, ushering in a new class of legislators dedicated to overturning it. What we've seen is the opposite: anti-gay marriage politicians being voted out en masse in favor of those who support it.  The people have spoken, over and over, and the result is one we can all be proud of, a wonderful example of our republic in action.

This is a historic moment and one every supporter of individual freedom should be celebrating. I hope you have a smile on your face.

Ear to ear. And it will soon be a personal epiphany as well, which is something I truly never expected.

Looking back on two decades of struggle, past the ashes of so many, to the clearing on which we now stand, it's hard not to weep. Two decades ago, marriage for gays was a pipe-dream. Some of us were ridiculed for even thinking of the idea. And yet here we are. Past the vicious attack from the president, past the cynical manipulation by Rove, past the cowardice of so many Democrats, past the rank hypocrisy of the Clintons, past the inertia of the Human Rights Campaign, past the false dawn in San Francisco, and the countless, countless debates and speeches and books and articles and op-eds. Yes, we have much more to do. Yes, we still have to win over those who see our loves as somehow destructive of the families we seek merely to affirm. Yes, we don't have federal recognition of our basic civic equality. Yes, in many, many states, we have been locked out of equality for a generation, because of the politics of fear and backlash. But look how far we've come. From a viral holocaust to full equality - somewhere in America, in the commonwealth where American freedom was born. In two decades. 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.

The media didn't much notice yesterday. But America changed. The world changed. And an ancient and deep wound began, ever so slightly, to heal.

(Photo: Greg Kimball and Brian O'Connor kiss outside the State House June 14, 2007 in Boston, Massachusetts. A special convening of the congress voted to kill a referendum that would have placed the Gay Marriage issue on the ballot in 2008. BY Darren McCollester/Getty.)