Monday, October 06, 2014

Wedding Bells

And then there were 24. With its decision not to hear pending marriage equality cases in five states, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for us gaymos to get hitched post haste in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Virginia already kicked things off with its Attorney General announcing marriages could begin at 1 p.m. today ET and calling it “a momentous & joyous day for thousands of Virginians.” Hell yeah, Virginia is for lovers. As it stands now, at 24, we’re at the tipping point for nationwide equality. One more state and it will be exactly half of the country.

And, that will happen much sooner rather than later because of the complicated way the circuit courts work. The decision today affects six more states, where same-sex marriage is all but assured to become law: Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

And those states, once all the legal wrangling is complete, will bring the number to 30. That’s more than half. That’s an unstoppable trend. That’s the majority. It should be noted that, of course, marriage equality is not the end-all, be-all gauge for full equality for LGBT people in this country. Ironically, in many of the newly or soon-to-be newly legalized states there are no statewide non-discrimination laws. So while you can get married, you can still get fired for being gay. So there is still much work to be done, of course. But for now, let us savor this moment at the precipice. Because very soon, those states that do not allow marriage equality will be in the minority. Yeah, suck on that. Also, damn, America. You are about to get so many more wedding invites.

p.s. It’s all very fluid. But according to the Freedom to Marry live blog, Colorado lifted its stay meaning it is the 25th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Which means HALF. HALF THE COUNTRY. Get on the right side of history boat or get left behind.

1 comment:

Carmen SanDiego said...

Amazing to think that we came this far this fast. Stonewall happened 45 years ago