Ding!
- The French legislature gave final approval to same-sex marriage legislation
- The Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee approved same-sex marriage legislation, opening it up for a vote today by the Rhode Island Senate
- The Delaware House of Representatives voted 23-18 in favor of same-sex marriage legislation
- The leader of the Black Caucus in the Illinois House said he would sponsor the existing same-sex marriage legislation being considered in the Illinois legislature
- A key swing vote in the Minnesota House came out in support of same-sex marriage legislation
- A poll from PPP came out today showing majority support for same-sex marriage in Colorado
- Most people found out yesterday that late the previous night the Nevada Senate voted favorably to start the process to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would legalize same-sex marriage
- The Colombian legislature is still debating and dithering, unable to either defeat or pass same-sex marriage legislation, leaving it up in the air what will happen on June 20th, the deadline the Colombian Supreme Court set for the legislature to act
And just a few days ago we learned that same-sex marriage is now legal in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, the 11th (of 26 total) Brazilian states to embrace marriage equality.
Few of these events actually did anything (same-sex marriage is not quite yet legal in France, the process continues in Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois and Minnesota, and who knows what will happen in Colombia), but taken together they have created what I suspect is the biggest worldwide day in marriage equality history, although I doubt that the history books will note it as such.
History looks to the day the Netherlands became the first country to legalize it in 2001, and the day Massachusetts became the first US state to do so in 2004. And perhaps last November's US election, when four states thumbed their collective noses at NOM and said 'yes' to marriage equality.
Nonetheless yesterday signified, to my mind, the total defeat of anti-equality forces on the global stage. The momentum should now be inexorable.
Rhode Island is now almost a lock. (The Rhode Island Senate votes today and I think success is all but guaranteed). Once that happens it is hard to see the Delaware, Illinois and Minnesota legislatures resisting for much longer. The pressure on the United Kingdom to get on with it and pass its pending legislation, Australia to join New Zealand, Finland to hold a vote in their legislature and Ireland to hold a constitutional referendum has also just been ratcheted up a couple more notches.
Faced with watching defeat after defeat as history continues to unfold, it's only a matter of time until anti-marriage equality forces all but vanish, bereft of funds and will to fight. True, it might take another fifty years for Russia to come around, and another hundred for Saudi Arabia; then again we all could be very surprised how things look almost everywhere on the globe in twenty years given the impetus yesterday's developments has provided.
Indeed, yesterday was a good day.