Well, @tom1944 , you brought tears to my eyes with this:
How very true. Thank you, millenials.
Nice to hear praise rather than the usual trope of we’re lazy, entitled, spoiled brats 
Again though, thank you to everyone who laid the groundwork. We wouldn’t be here without the decades of hard work and dedication. I am just so, so thankful that my children’s generation will think of this as some foreign, long-forgotten dark period of history.
I was in SF today and the mood on the street was jubilant. People are arriving from all over for the Pride events this weekend. The city was decorated for the parade, so it seemed extra festive. As I was watching an impromptu celebration on the street, I received a random hug from two strangers (a gay couple from Alabama) who just couldn’t contain their happiness. It was a joy to witness!
I respect those of you who were fighting for this all along. I wasn’t. I was brought up a Catholic, and when I was a college student I still thought marriage was between a man and a woman. I’m one of the ones who needed to have her mind changed, which happened, IIRC, sometime in the 80s.
CF, you are not alone in that. I went to Catholic school for 9 years and had very conservative views until high school. I thank my parents for kicking me out of that stage and I brought over my parents to supporting full equality. (They were ambivalent before that.)
I am a firm believer in that everyone is allowed to change. How else can growth and progress happen?
I think I’m going to hear the SF parade from here. I’m only 90 miles away.
I never thought I would see this…until a couple of years ago, I began to see that this was an idea whose time had come. I believed it would happen, and sooner rather than later. 
When I was a little kid/ early adolescent in the 70’s, in a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, gay male couples were seen as kind of glamorous and exotic, at least to me.
But I have vague memories of lots of great-auntly types of women couples who were referred to as companions and who basically escaped any notice or comment. (When I say greatly auntly, I mean they were probably 40 or something. Vaguely middle-aged).
I definitely remember winks and nods abt male couples being “you know,” but I don’t remember any comments about the women. Maybe it was because middle-aged women were viewed as so completely asexual nobody in my neighborhood cared.
Mind you, I’m talking about my own observations as a 5 to 13 year old Catholic kid who wasn’t dialed into, say, contemporary feminist theory. But does anyone get the sense that non-descript Lesbian couples were accepted much earlier than male couples. (I should note that my family wasn’t bigoted against gay men back then but it was just something that was seen as exotic and a little exciting in the way the women were not seen.)
The history of the fight for same sex marriage goes way back to when some of the older folks here were in hs or college. Did I think it would happen? Well, in 74 I moved to SF and even though home for the past 6 years had been Wash, DC, I learned it’s a bigger world than just what we experience in our own little corners. Way back then, we heard the tales of partners denied visitation in hospitals, inheritance rights, the different rules for co-owning property. Our eyes were opened. It just takes a while to filter things through a country this size.
I’m delighted by the week’s good news.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s near Laguna Beach and was aware of a lot of AIDS related death in the news. Personally I was ignorant of the whole thing as in I didn’t have any opinion. But my sister used to live near Hollywood, attended gay parades and associated frequently with 7 gay males. In fact, she didn’t know that they were gay until one day she took her high school friend to a Xmas party and he asked her if she knew her friends were gay. She was equally ignorant as I was. But this issue has finally hit closer to home because of one of my daughter’s best friend since elementary is a lesbian. I knew this kid since she was in 4th grade. It definitely changes my thinking on this subject. I’m more aware now then ignorant as in the 80s.
Back in 1996, The Economist ran a [cover[/url] and [url=<a href=“http://www.economist.com/node/2515389%5Deditorial%5B/url”>http://www.economist.com/node/2515389]editorial[/url] promoting same-sex marriage. I did not then expect it to ever happen in the US. Indeed, it was as recently as the mid-2000s when anti-same-sex-marriage propositions were used to get socially conservative voters to elections.
Nate Silver wrote that “[url=<a href=“http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/change-doesnt-usually-come-this-fast/%5Dchange”>http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/change-doesnt-usually-come-this-fast/]change usually doesn’t come this fast](http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/2014/10/articles/body/20141011_fbp006.jpg)”.
I don’t see how anyone in their right mind couldn’t be happy with today’s news. It’s a win-win all around… equal rights to all.
I am happy, even though I consider myself a fairly conservative Christian. I know it is right.
Love is the answer.
[DC Gay Men’s Chorus sings National Anthem after Supreme Court legalizes same sex marriage](DC Gay Men's Chorus sings National Anthem after Supreme Court legalizes same sex marriage - YouTube)
i was born in 1969 and I am surprised it has happened quite this soon. Heck, even in 2007(I think) I was at a college friend’s wedding and another friend, who is gay, was saying that it wasn’t even legal for him. Well, his state legalized gay marriage in 2011. He got married a couple of years ago. And now he can move to my backwards state and still be married.
And I know that my millennial kids are less amazed by this than I am. I really thought they’d have to be more in charge before this happened.
My memory is bad because the news said California had legalized same sex marriage already. Proposition 8. I don’t remember what happened to that. Maybe this post should be in the thread about memory problem.
It was overturned in a California court. The decision went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was part of the last gay marriage case, the one announced exactly two years ago. The Supreme Court punted on the grounds of standing, it went back to the California courts, and we have had gay marriage in California since then.
Here’s the answer to yr q re Cal law:
- Cal Supreme Ct declared that Cal constitution gave right to same sex marriage.
- Many couples got married.
- Prop 8 was passed by narrow margin amending Cal constitution.
- Federal court held that the amendment taking away an existing right to marry violated the equal protection clause.
- State didn't appeal judgment, so sponsors of ballot initiative stepped in to try and appeal even though they have no stake in matter.
- 9th Cir upheld decision.
- Supreme Court grants cert to hear case. It is heard together with Windsor (the Defense of Marriage Act case).
- On California case, S Ct basically punts on the merits and holds that the people bringing the appeal have no standing. Thus, original district court decision stands.
- Same sex marriage therefore legal in CA.
Thank you. I’m hoping a lot of Americans who feel as you do will be as gracious as this.