Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
She just wrote a beautiful piece about a wedding in her family and how, in contrast to all that nonsense we hear about the "radical homosexual agenda," it was really just a routine event - and that's exactly how it should be treated:
I understand why people who don't have any close gay friends or relatives think single-sex marriage is strange and disruptive. But it isn't. It's merely a way of turning de facto relationships into de jure ones. And the relationships that distinguish de jure marriage aren't so much those between spouses but those between the married couple and other people, perhaps most importantly their extended families. As of July 27, this happy woman went from my sister-not-exactly-in-law, her status for the past two decades, to my actual legal sister-in-law. And the woman she's hugging became her legal mother-in-law, instead of the unofficial relative who comes to visit for a month every year, whose medical care she frets over, and whose new living arrangements she researched. (Did I mention that Mindy, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, is now a stay-at-home mom? How traditional can you get? Steve and I are the radical ones.)
I particularly like this part (you'll have to follow the link to see the pictures):
Neither, as some conservatives imagine, was the wedding a mockery of marriage or tradition. This was no Black Mass (or the Jewish equivalent). To the contrary, it was a continuation of cherished religious and family traditions. Pam and Mindy even got married under the chuppa I'd made for our own wedding 22 years ago, back when they were just girlfriends. I cross-stitched an applique with their Hebrew names to cover our own. That I mismeasured and allowed just a tiny bit of ours to peek out seems somehow appropriate. (The couple in the center built the structure that holds up the very heavy chuppa; the versatile woman with the drill is also the cantor.)
She quotes a really moving essay that Andrew Sullivan wrote about his own marriage that I think underscores the reality that same-sex marriages are identical in every meaningful way to conventional marriages:
Ours was not, we realized, a different institution, after all, and we were not different kinds of people. In the doing of it, it was the same as my sister's wedding and we were the same as my sister and brother-in-law. The strange, bewildering emotions of the moment, the cake and reception, the distracted children and weeping mothers, the morning's butterflies and the night's drunkenness: this was not a gay marriage; it was a marriage.And our families instantly and for the first time since our early childhood became not just institutions in which we were included, but institutions that we too owned and perpetuated. My sister spoke of her marriage as if it were interchangeable with my own, and my niece and nephew had no qualms in referring to my husband as their new uncle. The embossed invitations and the floral bouquets and the fear of fluffing our vows: in these tiny, bonding gestures of integration, we all came to see an alienating distinction become a unifying difference.
Beautiful. And true.
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I know I've said this on here before, but one of the most moving moments at my own wedding was when my friend Bill, a Californian, said he wanted his own weddding to be just like mine. It was such a wonderful compliment, but it broke my heart to realize that he didn't have any real hope of having a real wedding. Now, 17 years later, he really does have that chance, as do millions of others. Congratulations to all of them.
Posted by: James Hanley | August 27, 2008 10:23 AM
Times really are changing. I got a haircut this weekend, and as I was awaiting my turn I saw that the cover story of the current People magazine was "exclusive photos of Ellen and Portia's wedding." If that's not a sign that the battle is pretty well over, I don't know what is.
Posted by: Pieter B | August 27, 2008 10:51 AM
I don't believe I hate anyone. But I have to really work at it when it comes to social conservatives. Mundane ignorance is no longer a viable excuse.
And it's not just gays, it's race and gender. I have two associates in the high tech industry, both engineers, both in cutting edge technology, one with a masters in IT, who are members of a church that does not allow women the right to teach Sunday School or preach in forums that adult men attend, and forget gays, yet they sincerely believe they are progressive in their outlook given the others they assoicate with at this church.
This country continues to live in ignorance of our history and its lessons, problem is we can longer afford such ignorance given the future job requirements we require out of our pop'n.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 27, 2008 11:48 AM
I have always wondered why it is that the churches to which I have belonged (Unitarian and United Church of Christ) are only allowed to perform some marriages, the others being... what exactly? They aren't civil unions, we still see a couple saying the same words my wife and I said (or similar anyways). What happened to the establishment cause in these cases?
I'm tired of having to have my marriage cheapened by the fact that the church that performed it is not sanctioned by either state of federal government. (Not that it is cheapening our relationship, but if they want to argue that gay marriage weakens marriage, I get to argue that mandating man-woman only marriage weakens mine!)
My best friend had to travel to Canada (which isn't that big of a burden, and Victoria is lovely) to be able to get married in a ceremony recognized by a state. She had hoped to get married here in Portland, and for a brief while it might have been possible - but even in this liberal bastion, our politicians caved in on the issue.
Enough! Let's stop taking this bullshit!
BTW- congratulations to Virginia's friends, and to everyone getting married out there!
cheers-
Eric
Posted by: Eric | August 27, 2008 12:33 PM
From the Sullivan article (which I had read before):
I think this realization is why the right-wingers are so scared of gay marriage: the sheer normality of it belies their claim that gays & lesbians are sick morally-deviant sinners. It's harder to hate folks when they look & act just like us.
Posted by: WScott | August 27, 2008 12:56 PM
Good God, if too many of our kids end up like me, thinking queers are people, too, where will the next generation of fag-haters come from?!
Posted by: James Hanley | August 27, 2008 1:02 PM
This was no Black Mass (or the Jewish equivalent).
Jews do Satanic ritual differently from Christians? That concept is just surreal...
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 27, 2008 1:13 PM
Posted by: WScott | August 27, 2008 1:28 PM
What a beautiful statement. So many people I know just want to protect their families. They are the ones charged with being anti-family, when it is their families under attack.
Posted by: Lisa D | August 27, 2008 1:45 PM
I am very sure that God blessed this wedding of two people who were in love with one another and wished to confirm that fact before their friends and relatives and yes, also before God, as God blesses all weddings at which that happens.
Posted by: eeuropean2000 | August 27, 2008 2:58 PM