Not Separate, Just Equal

What California's same-sex unions reveal about marriage

Those joyous images of June 16, as crowds of couples entered into the first legal same-sex marriages in California, showed us the simple dignity that accrues from equality. No matter that activists had carefully orchestrated many of the photo ops. Marriage equality took too many years, and California voters could still snatch it back in an initiative this fall. For now, America is a nation where all couples, gay and straight, can wed, even if the gay ones have to make a trip to California to do so. (Or move to Massachusetts.)

For all the champagne and finery and tears, weddings...

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