Down with DOMA!
Congratulations to the LGTBQ community on today's historic decision to guarantee the rights of all our citizens, regardless of sexuality. It's one step closer to a law guaranteeing the protection of gay couples in all states, and across the entirety of this nation.
I want invites to all the parties. Seriously.
But the best part of my day was letting my good friend know that she and her girlfriend are one step closer to getting legally married. The way her face lit up was one of the most heartwarming things I've seen in a long time.
As a straight white female, I enjoy a lot of standing in this nation. In all ways but one (my Paganism), I fit the bill for privilege. And with regard to my faith, any right to believe as I do has been protected since day one. Others have fought for and won my right to vote and my sexual freedoms. And while being a woman still has its disadvantages (earnings being one), I pretty much...have no worried. No one challenges my right to vote, to get married, to worship, to adopt the children with whom I will one day fall deeply in love.
This is not the case for a great number of people in this nation. African Americans still face institutional racism, along with the ever-growing Hispanic population. Hispanics in Arizona are presumed guilty of illegally immigrating to the United States just because their skin is brown. The recently-doomed Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act has been used more than forty times in the past few years to protect voting rights for minorities and just about anyone who isn't a middle-aged white person. Homosexual couples still have no legal right to marry in thirty-two states, and only seventeen states (plus DC) allow same-sex adoptions (despite overwhelming evidence that same-sex families are just as loving, caring, and healthy as families with hetero parents).
Our nation isn't perfect. But today it took a big step toward being the nation all the songs talk about, and the inspirational speeches, and for which that statue in the harbor stands high!
Congratulations, USA. We're getting better.
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