I put this in my LiveJournal, and I want to duplicate it here for reference, and just because it fits. Just generally, these are my thoughts on what is going on in San Francisco and the country as a whole.
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God, I wish I could go to San Francisco. I want to walk through City Hall, to meet couples there waiting in line to get married. I want to feel that atmosphere. This is something incredible going on in San Francisco right now. This is the very front of our generation's civil rights battle. Seriously, I wish I could convey how this makes me feel. There are hundreds, thousands of people who are for the first time in their lives being allowed to realize their dream, who are finally able to do what every straight American is allowed to do from day one.
I mean, imagine growing up knowing you won't be allowed to marry. Knowing that if you ever find that true love, you won't be able to marry that person. You aren't good enough. You are less of a person. You are a bad person. You don't deserve happiness. You don't deserve the same rights as everyone else.
I don't believe marriage to be the holy grail of relationships, but it is an American ideal. I grew up with the idea that I would at some point find a girl I love and I would marry her. It's just--it's considered what you do in America. So what if I grew up knowing I would at some point find a girl I love and would . . . never be able to marry her? Never be allowed? What if I knew it wasn't an option?
And what if it suddenly became one?
I read these articles and I want to cry. I seriously do. I get misty eyed, sometimes. It's just incredible and I consider it to be so far the most impressive moment for this country in my lifetime. Over the last three years, I have been disgusted by what has happened in this country socially and politically. But then the mayor of San Francisco walks out and takes a stand, a moral stand, and says that we must stop discriminating. Fuck the law, we're going to allow marriage for everyone, not just some. And now I find myself proud of my country. I realize that this--THIS is America. This is how this country is great. And I have all kinds of hope--more than I ever have before. And I have all kinds of pride--far more than I ever have before for my country. And it doesn't matter that some irrelevant asshole in the White House wants to use this to write hate into the Constitution, because he has already failed. His amendment is essentially dead on arrival.
By no means is this fight over. But there is something tremendous and wonderful and beautiful happening in this country and hatred will try to end it, but it won't be able to.
And this is why America is a great fucking country.