Today is the day we've been waiting for. Today, we will hear the Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA and Prop 8. It's a very big day. I woke up at 4:45 this morning and am drinking all the coffee.
I'm scared, but excited. I think this could be it. This could be the day that my marriage becomes federally recognized. The day that church and state are separated. The day that the courts recognize discrimination. Today.
When we got married here in Massachusetts in 2004, I didn't think this day would come so soon. The marriage equality debate had us all raw. It felt too soon. Family members refused to go to same-sex weddings, friendships were broken, the protesters were just too loud. If you had told me then that I would be sitting here now, with our sleeping 4-year-old in the other room, awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court on marriage equality, I wouldn't have possibly believed you.
But now, today, is a different world. With social media connecting friends and family who had loose connections at best before, we are now seeing a major shift. Those who were overcome with opposition to what we called 'Gay Marriage' have softened. They have seen us. Our marriage is real. Our lives are real. Our family is real. Those opponents recognize that they're in the minority. Some still fight, of course. Lots of them. But there are so many others who disagree, who oppose mightily in their hearts, just remain quiet about it. It is quickly becoming a world in which it's no longer acceptable for you to freely discriminate against me and my family.
I didn't see that coming.
And so we wait this morning. We wait online with hundreds of our friends showing support through their red profile pictures. We wait with more allies than we ever imagined we would have. We wait for the discrimination to end. We wait for our family to be supported by the state and separated from the church. We wait to see what will happen.
UPDATE:
This morning when my daughter woke up, I almost told her what was happening today. But I stopped. I realized that if DOMA was overturned, she would never know a day in her little life when we didn't have full equality. For the first four years of her life, because she was ignorant of the fact that such discriminatory laws existed. For the next years of her life, because the equality would really be ours.
I'm glad I let that moment pass. A few short hours later, it happened. DOMA is overturned. Prop 8 is dismissed. That's it. Just like that, in an instant, equality is ours. My marriage is legal. My family is equal. This equality is all my daughter will ever know. Life rules.
