A few years back, some people here in Minnesota tried to make it a law - set in stone - that people who were already being denied equal rights would NEVER be able to have those rights. This pissed me off something awful. Many of my friends are LGBT and I saw no good reason why they shouldn't be allowed to get married and enjoy the same benefits as everyone else. It was bad enough that they weren't allowed to get married, and that if they married elsewhere their marriages would not be recognized here - but the knowledge that some jackasses wanted to set it in stone and make it against the law just sent me right round the bend. I had to do something - and I did.
I volunteered and worked on the phone calling people and asking them to please vote this down.
I went out with other volunteers and did door to door canvassing asking people to not discriminate.
And again to "Get out the Vote".
And all the while I was being told that every other state that had this on the ballot in the past had passed it... In all 30 states where a vote to define a marriage as only between a man and a woman in its constitution has been held, it has passed. The only attempt that failed was in 2006 in Arizona, but it passed two years later.
And every time someone pointed this out to me I said No. Love will win. Love will always win, and I will fight for it.
There was much celebration when we defeated it. I still wear my Vote No t-shirt with pride.
A year later, I was a member of the enormous crowd of people singing and chanting in the Capitol building as the local politicians voted on it and decided that yes - LGBT people deserved the right to marry. And with the crowd of supporters erupting into cheers I saw one of my friends take a knee and propose to his sweetie of many years.
I was standing on the Capitol lawn with the cheering jubilant crowd as Governor Dayton signed the papers.
And I went back again to counter-protest the members of the Westboro Baptist Church who tried to cloud up an otherwise sunny day with their hate and rhetoric.
And since then, every time the news announced that yet another state had legalized same sex marriage I smiled and said another state on the side of equality.
And now, thanks to the Supreme Court - equality is the law of the land.
And I always knew it would be so.
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