Today we can add New Hampshire to the list of places we can all get married: Connecticut, Iowa, and Massachusetts, with Vermont on the way (September 2009).
It looks like Maine will be next, as a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage is headed to a vote in the state house. The legislation moved forward with a vote of 11 to 3, and is looking like it will pass.
Californians are still awaiting a State Supreme Court decision on the political travesty that was Proposition 8, a voter initiative that was largely driven and funded by out-of-state religious money.
Of course these religious organizations are already using scare tactics to try and spawn legislation in each of these states with the intent of rescinding the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
After all, same-sex marriage was already legal in California when Proposition 8 was placed on the ballot.
However, watching these states fall one-by-one, I get a little giddy.
It’s easier to move a small state than a large state. The more small states that continue to move toward marriage equality, the more the resources of organizations trying to thwart it will be diluted and rendered ineffective.
It feels a lot like the climatic scene in one of my favorite movies, The Thomas Crown Affair (yes, the remake, I confess). The police are set up in a museum in an attempt to capture an art theft suspect. He enters the museum carrying a briefcase, and dons a bowler. They hone in on him. But, suddenly, men appear everywhere dressed like him, all over the museum. There are so many dopplegangers that the police don’t know where to move next. The first time I saw this, I kept hopping up and down, I was so excited. It was brilliant then and it’s still brilliant now.
I knew there was a reason I loved this movie. But I always thought it was about Rene Russo’s dance scene in that transparent black dress. I didn’t realize it was because of a political strategy.
(But, you didn’t think I could write about the dance scene without posting it, did you?)
This Associated Press photo by Steve Pope in the New York Times made me realize that Iowa is making gay marriage look so normal.
