I witnessed a wedding yesterday. I didn't actually know any members of the wedding party but it was one emotional ceremony that marked the joy in the fact that equal rights is coming to America. I saw a great deal of significance in the Angel Bethesda bearing witness.
It was beautiful to watch. Congratulating two people I'd never met before, I felt it, the real progress. For me, it was an Angels in America thing.
This disease will be the end of many of us but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated, and we'll struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The Time has come. Bye now, you are fabulous, each and every one of you. More life, the great work begins.
It took me back to the hate filled era when Tony Kushner put those words to paper. I remembered that political action had already changed acceptance in the time that passed before Stephen Spinella repeated those words on the stage. Great change had already come by the time Justin Kirk said it on our televisions. And yesterday, on a lovely Central Park day of autumn leaves over snow, I thought the the view seemed almost climactic.
For everyone else, the people enjoying the view at the Bethesda Terrace, walkers throughout the rest of the park, people all across this great city, the state of New York State and this entire nation, that wedding and many others are a symbol of justice and equal rights. But seeing those vows before that Angel, that was inspirational.
Change does happen and yesterday's view felt like healing waters washing across America.