Love

I know, I've often promised to keep this an apolitical space, but this is something I just need to share.

Take a look at this picture:

Photo by Carolyn Cole, LA Times

This is not about a political statement, or about insurance, or about religion.

This is just about love.  The women above are the first gay couple to be legally married in the state of New York.

I look at those women, women who have been together for decades, who have obviously stood by each other and cared for each other, and what I see in their faces brings me to tears.  What I see is a validation, and relief, and joy.

I think about all of my friends who are married.  In this amazing age of SnapFish and Facebook, I get to see a lot of wedding pictures.  And this is the picture you always look for.  The picture where the couple is so blissfully oblivious to the world around them, where the only thing that matters is that they are in love, and that they've tied their lives together forever.

Frankly, I think the presence of that photo is a good sign that the marriage is going to work.

I've seen a lot of friends' marriages collapse.  And in none of those cases did I think back to their wedding day and think, but they were so happy!  I always think back to the things that always seemed not quite right.  Hindsight, perhaps, but when people are truly happy together, are truly dedicated to the massive and important decision they've made to love somebody, to care for them...

Everyone who falls so deeply in love should have this moment.  Whether or not they conform to anyone else's idea of appropriateness or homogeneity.

This is what love is about.  And I don't think it's the government's right to say who is and isn't entitled to it.

M and I

My parents

One of my best friends

Me and M's cousins

Our friends

...and more friends

...and more

I haven't had the pleasure of watching some of my best friends walk down the isle, or wooded trail, or backyard path that I know they wish to.  I know that, if they had been able, many more of my friends would have married.  And many still would not, because marriage doesn't define a relationship.

For the people involved.

But it does define a relationship to strangers.  To people who would deny someone their happiness because of a simple disagreement.

Maybe it's that I grew up with a queer aunt.  Who I loved (and still love) and who I never thought odd or wrong for being with a woman.  Maybe it's because I have a sister with a lovely and wonderful girlfriend.  Maybe it's because I spent much of my youth in Ann Arbor, MI, where there is a large and vocal queer population.  Maybe I've been lucky to be exposed to openness, not to have been brought up surrounded by fear of the other, the different.

Whatever the case, I am deeply, deeply happy for the residents of New York.  It doesn't mean there's any more love in the world than there was a week ago, but it does mean that there's a little more that we can see.

And the more love we see, the more love we feel, and the more love we live.

And I don't see how that could possibly hurt anybody.