SCOTUS legalized gay marriage (in so many words). There’s the big news, for those of you who have been away on a silent retreat or lost in tinderdom.
I happen to be travelling in San Francisco this week with a few buddies. How serendipitous given the historicity of the city and its denizens in the fight for gay rights. The energy here is infectious.
My friends and I already had a day trip planned. Fortunately, we were able to make it back in time to check out what was going on in San Fransisco’s historical gay neighborhood known as the Castro, which remains a nexus for LGBT activism. Even at 11 P.M. on a weeknight, the Castro was still a huge party. People of all different ages, races, sexualities, genders, etc. flooded the main intersections. Chants of “equality” circumscribed by the exaltations of a saxophone could be heard outside the historic Castro Walgreens.
There was nothing overtly political about the display. People just seemed genuinely happy to celebrate love in all of its manifests. While this virtue has somehow been made a political badge, the Castro brouhaha didn’t feel like a reaction checkmark on a political agenda. Rather, it was a celebration of the profundity of marriage as an institution that is infra-political — not because some bible defines language in such a way — but because of what marriage intrinsically is. As Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority opinion: “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”
Today, love wins, bringing the tally to: Love – 17; Hate – 7,689,493,048.