Even at dark moments for this countryafter 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, for examplemy tendency is always to scout out the sliver of hope for future progress.
But I’ve got to be honest with you, sometimes that optimism only goes so far. The morning after the 2004 election, when voters in 11 states passed constitutional bans on marriage equality, I never thought I’d see committed and loving gay and lesbian couples getting married in my lifetime — in Alabama of all places.
What’s more, I certainly never thought that, 50 years after a march for voting rights went from Selma to Montgomery, that the first couple to get married there would be a courageous African-American couple, Tori Sisson and Shanté Wolfe, who camped out overnight on the sidewalk outside the courthouse just to be the first in line.
They slept on that chilly pavement despite the ravings of Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, who has issued baseless edict after baseless edict urging the state’s probate judges to ignore a federal court ruling (which supersedes a state ruling) and to refuse to treat LGBT people equally under the law. Even today, more than half the counties in the state are refusing to issue licenses to gay couples.
–
Read CNNOpinion’s new Flipboard magazine.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.
