On Marriage Equality

 Around one year ago, I had a chance to attend a wedding, a gay wedding.

As is often the case, one half of the couple seemed to have the "louder" personality; he was working on voting rights, so he designed the "order of activities" to resemble a voting pamphlet. Small stick figures illustrated the text. The font came from the NYC subway signs; each activity involved numbered "how-to-style" instructions.

The louder spouse was a world traveler--so the food stations were from far-flung corners of the Earth; each station represented an actual, bizarre trip that the spouse had taken (and laminated photos drove the point home).

All well and good--but I trained my eye on the quieter spouse. Still waters can run deep. 

Not shockingly, the quieter spouse stole the show. He did this in his vows. He spoke about struggling to come to terms with his sexual orientation--feeling, for a long time, that he had to be guarded and "perfect" to compensate for his own perceived deficiency. Then, meeting his quirky significant other allowed him to drop the act and just "become a person." To me, this talk was impressive because it represented a fair amount of self-reflection. But, also, it represented chutzpah; the speaker was saying, "I know I'm making myself vulnerable by conceding this stuff, but, oh, well. The truth is the truth."

I remember all this as a new attack-on-Obergefell gathers steam. I tend not to follow the details--because, unlike my own spouse, I'm not paid to follow the details. Also--like the writer Toni Morrison--I tend to think that evil is sort of boring. It becomes banal--after several months. Still, I ought to speak up in some way.

Thinking of one particular now-married couple today--as we all continue to live with tyranny.