One year ago I described the 2012 election as the turning point in the struggle for marriage equality, as three states won or protected the freedom to marry at the ballot box and another fought back a constitutional ban. But if 2012 marked a watershed, 2013 was the deluge over that divide, with a record number of states recognizing equal marriage, and more than half of those doing so legislatively.  In one year, the number of marriage equality states effectively doubled. Sixteen states, the District of Columbia, and several Native American tribal councils – representing over 38% of the population – now recognize the freedom to marry (with decisions in Utah and Oklahoma, representing an additional 2%, currently stayed pending appeal).

The transition from 2013 to 2014 also marks a decade of equality, as the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court equal marriage decision went into effect in May 2004. 2004 also saw the celebration and tragic voiding of four thousand marriages in San Francisco, in some ways teeing off the long painful fight for marriage equality in California that resulted in In re Marriage Cases, Prop 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and, finally, the restoration of the freedom to marry. As critical as 2004 was in the movement, though, it’s important to remember that the struggle for legal recognition of our relationships began more than three decades earlier.

There are potential drawbacks to both the seemingly rapid rate of success we’ve seen recently, and the long hard work needed to make such successes possible. A sense that the tide is unstoppable risks making us complacent, while the long hard work necessary risks burning us out, especially once our own state has won equality.

For many of us, for example, the sense of euphoria we felt in 2013 as marriage equality was restored to California largely erased the pain of the five years while the Prop 8 case made its way through the courts, or at least seemed to offer a chance to try to catch our breath.

Still, over half of us live in states with statutes or constitutional amendments explicitly denying marriage to same-sex couples. And those of us who may legally marry at home shouldn’t have to fear becoming legal strangers to our spouses as we cross state borders. The work goes on, as long as even one of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers still is denied the freedom to marry the person they love.

Though Marriage Equality USA has its roots and largest membership bases in states where marriage equality is now law, the organization is proud to be a strong and active player in the fight to win the freedom to marry for all Americans. Thanks to our NEAT (National Equality Action Team) coalition, MEUSA has played a key role in winning marriage equality in states like Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. This year we’ll be supporting efforts in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Oregon, among others. Please help us help them win the same freedom and happiness we now have.

By MEUSA Social Media Manager Thom Watson 

When Jeff and I married this past September, we expected that we would recognize a difference in our lives and in our relationship after tying the knot.

There are tangible differences, of course, as with our health insurance coverage and taxation. The differences most often have been subtler, but they clearly exist. Marriage matters.

Even in silly little ways we notice it. We delight in referring to each other as “husband,” and it feels more truly descriptive and honest to do so now. And, though we’d been living together a decade before our marriage, and had a registered domestic partnership for nearly half that time, we recently began only half-jokingly commemorating “our firsts,” though they were firsts only in a qualified sense: our first Thanksgiving “as a married couple,” our first Christmas “as husbands,” our first New Year “as legal spouses.”

What I don’t think we fully expected, though, was just how much our marriage meant to other people, and how it would change the way even our friends and families relate to and about us. Those changes run the gamut from trivial to significant. A great many of our friends, for example, have congratulated us on our first Christmas as a married couple.

More subtly, friends and family members who treated us with respect before we were married, who saw us as a committed couple even without a license, nevertheless seem to see and speak of us differently now. Our mothers provide perhaps the most poignant examples. Early in December, Jeff introduced me at a party to an old friend of his mother’s as his husband. Jeff’s mom jumped right in and said, “Yes, I now have two sons.” Our Christmas card from her reflected the same sentiment, as she had used a pen to change the card’s pre-printed “My Son” to read “My Sons.” Similarly, my mother addressed Jeff’s Christmas card this year to “My Son-in-Law.”

Friends and family who rarely, if ever, intruded into the particulars of our relationship now ask when or if we’re planning to have kids; yep, just like opposite-sex couples, that’s now the expectation for what follows marriage. My mother told my nephew’s new fiancées that they have Jeff as an example of how to survive marrying into my loud, overwhelming, overly protective family, and how to deal with one’s in-laws.

Marriages matter, not just for spouses, but for their families and indeed for the larger society in which they live and move. When we marry, our families, friends, and neighbors more clearly understand – and, what’s most troubling to our opponents, increasingly respect and embrace – that families, communities, and societies benefit, and are strengthened, when marriage makes possible the time-honored and express relationship not just with your daughter and son-in-law, but with your son and son-in-law, too.

Mothers-in-law may be fodder for comedians, but understanding that Jeff’s mom is my honest-to-goodness mother-in-law – and that she believes it, too – is about as serious as it gets.

By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson 

Last weekend, our community lost one of our most powerful advocates and a truly wonderful person: Marvin Burrows.

Marvin came out 62 years ago – in 1951 – at age 15. A couple years later he met Bill, whom he would marry at San Francisco City Hall on February 13, 2004, 51 years later. In his own words from testimony to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee: “I met the love of my life, William Duane Swenor, in 1953. He was 15 and I was 17. My father found out and told me to leave home if I continued to see Bill. After my dad kicked me out I had no place to go, and I was still in high school. I stayed with my grandmother until Bill could ask his mother if I could move in with them. She gave her permission, I moved in, and from that time on we lived as a committed couple.” After 51 years together, Marvin described his wedding to Bill as “the best time in our lives…”

But the courts declared Marvin and Bill’s marriage and the marriages of over 4,000 other same-sex couples who married in San Francisco in 2004 “null and void.” And as Marvin and Bill began to fight back with thousands of others, Bill died suddenly. Because their marriage had been declared to be illegal, Marvin was denied the legal rights and dignity that every American should have. The indignity began almost immediately after Bill passed away. “When Bill passed I called the cremation service that had taken care of my mother…However, they told me that I did not have the right to dispose of (Bill’s) body…(because they) considered us to be only ‘roommates,’ basically legal ‘strangers.’”

That was only the beginning. Soon thereafter, the Social Security Administration denied Marvin spousal survivor benefits and Bill’s labor union denied Marvin survivor pension benefits because the law would not recognize their marriage, even after 52 years together. Marvin was forced to move from the home that he and Bill had shared for over three decades. In Marvin’s words, “I lost my lifelong partner, my home, our animals, income, my health insurance, and even my bed and furniture all in one fell swoop.”

Marvin fought back in every way and with everyone he possibly could.

Over the years, Bill and Marvin had built strong personal relationships with many of Bill’s fellow local union members – all of whom identified as straight – and the union members had deep respect for Bill. They and many others stood up with Marvin, and after a 3-year struggle, the national union finally relented and awarded Bill’s pension to Marvin, saying it was “the right thing to do for a fellow member.” The victory was a public policy breakthrough for same-sex couples everywhere.

Marvin was a wonderful friend, and an inspiring activist with organizations including Marriage Equality USA, Lavender Seniors, GLOBE, Meals on Wheels, and California Senior Leaders at UC Berkeley, just to name a few. His legacy inspires us all to continue to stand up together and never give up.

By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis 

This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, December 18, 2013: http://sfbaytimes.com/marvin-burrows-love-warrior/ 

As we commemorate the 35th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk, our recent trip to Japan to speak about marriage equality made clear how Harvey’s call to come out is just as important as ever.

Significantly fewer LGBT Japanese have come out than their American counterparts, and LGBT Japanese are a much less visible part of society and the media than in the U.S. The Japanese people we met gave us insight into how coming out in Japan is similar to, and different from, America.

One Japanese activist told us that he came out to his parents in high school after his first date with a boy, because he did not want to keep a secret within himself and wanted his parents to know him as he really was. His parents were very accepting. But another activist described how 20 years ago, his father and brother beat him when he came out and threw him out of the house. He found his way to the office of a Tokyo LGBT activist organization that let him sleep on their floor until he could get on his feet. He has now worked for that organization for over 10 years and is a leading advocate for people with HIV/AIDS in Japan.

We met a bisexual student who wants to design LGBT manga cartoons to support the movement, but was afraid to come out to her father. We encouraged her to come out if it was safe, so that she could lead a life that was true to who she was and contribute her creativity and talent to help others.

Coming out appears to be particularly difficult for many Japanese LGBT people because of the importance of social conformity in Japan. Many college students told us that they had known perhaps only one openly LGBT person in their entire lives. We were the first openly LGBT people some had ever met. Activists told us that the pressure for conformity can lead to greater internalized homophobia, and that coming out can lead to significant social isolation and loneliness.

However, our speaking about Harvey Milk’s call to come out – both for one’s personal well being and for the benefit of the movement – seemed to resonate everywhere we went. Activists believed that more Japanese LGBT people coming out was critical to advancing legal, social, and political change, including marriage equality.

After hearing our marriage and coming-out stories, one student decided it was time for him to come out, too — but not as LGBT (he was straight) but as a Japanese person of Korean ethnicity, a group that faces significant discrimination. When he came out as Korean-Japanese and told his personal story of exclusion and discrimination, he received enormous support from his classmates.  In so doing, we hope he made his own life better and, at the same time, took an important step to help the movement for human dignity and equality for all – an act with which we believe Harvey would have been very pleased.

By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis 

This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, November 28, 2013: http://sfbaytimes.com/coming-out-for-marriage-equality-in-japan/ 

By MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney and MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis This article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, October 31, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=18103 October brought marriage equality to state #14 – New Jersey. As attention now turns to the race between New Mexico, Hawaii and Illinois to see which state will become #15, we are also taking it to another level: Our momentum is going global. In November, we are traveling to Japan to give a series of public lectures and seminars on marriage equality and LGBT rights, and to meet with Japanese LGBT leaders. And while marriage is in the air in Japan – Kanako Otsuji, the first openly lesbian member of the Japanese legislature, held a personal wedding ceremony with her partner Maki Kimura; and Tokyo Disneyland hosted its first same-sex wedding ceremony this year – currently same-sex couples cannot marry legally in any Asian country. But just as we are seeing progress at home state by state, we are seeing signs of progress in countries across Asia, ranging from proposed legislation in Thailand for civil unions to a recent poll showing majority support for marriage equality in Taiwan. In the last week of October alone, historic rallies for marriage equality took place both in Vietnam and in Taiwan. In the words of Le Quang Binh, organizer of the Hanoi rally: “I believe in people and I think that when everybody speaks out, everyone has to listen whoever you are. So that’s why we do it this way. We mobilize public opinion, LGBT, students, young people so when people speak their opinion, politicians will have to listen. And I believe that politicians are also human beings. They need time to understand.” One of the messages we will bring to Japan is that we can be proud that Asian Americans have been very active in the marriage equality movement, and organizations like API Equality have played a prominent role here in California. When API organizations filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court case that established marriage equality in California prior to the passage of Prop 8, over 60 API civil rights and community organizations signed on. Among the very first was the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), noting that one of the lessons from the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II must be to uphold the civil rights of all groups, including LGBT Americans. In the words of former U.S. Transportation Secretary and Congressman Norman Mineta, “a threat to anybody’s civil rights is a threat to the civil rights of all Americans.” We look forward to reporting back in the coming weeks on our trip to Japan, and the lessons learned as we continue to make progress across all borders and boundaries.

By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson In my previous column I noted I was about to get married. I hope you’ll forgive my ongoing self-indulgence as I write about my nuptials once more. One’s own wedding, after all, doesn’t happen every day. Admittedly, given California’s rollercoaster history regarding marriage equality, some of us have been married multiple times to the same person. Jeff and I even had a post-Prop 8 commitment ceremony that we called a wedding, in defiance of the amendment’s unconstitutional claim that we weren’t legally entitled to the term. But Jeff and I legally wed just once.  At 2:00 p.m., Thursday, September 26 – three weeks ago today and four years to the day from that non-legal commitment ceremony – we made our vows to one another at San Francisco City Hall. Originally, our congresswoman Jackie Speier was slated to officiate. However, due to the ongoing budget crisis in the federal government, the House of Representatives was called back from their recess originally scheduled for the week we were to marry, and Rep. Speier regretfully had to cancel. [caption id="attachment_447" align="alignleft" width="300"] Jeff and Thom with Stuart and John at the Cliff House, September 28. ©2013 Levi Smith Photography[/caption] With one week to go before the wedding, our very dear friends and my fellow Bay Times columnists John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney generously agreed to step in as co-officiants. Actually, knowing that John had officiated other weddings, and that he and Stuart were going to be there at our wedding – just as they’d been with us at City Hall after Judge Walker’s decision in August, 2010, when we hoped the stay would be lifted and we would be able to marry; on Valentine’s Day earlier this year when we spoke to a crowd at City Hall about the pain of still not being able to wed; and again at City Hall that joyful day this past June when we finally got our marriage license – we already had asked if he would be willing to officiate in the event the congresswoman were called back to D.C. We had planned to ask Stuart to be our witness. When John and Stuart arrived at City Hall on the 26^th, however, they surprised us  by asking if we’d mind if they performed the wedding together. We were touched by the suggestion, thrilled by the possibility, and particularly moved by the symbolism of having these two men stand together to pronounce the words that would make Jeff and me husbands. Four years ago we knew John and Stuart largely only as fellow marriage equality activists, heroes of the California marriage equality movement, and plaintiffs in the court case that first established the freedom to marry in California and set the stage for our own wedding this year. In the intervening time, though, they’d become our mentors, our comrades-in-arms, and our brothers. John and Stuart brought a deeply personal touch to the ceremony, and Jeff and I consider ourselves to be so very fortunate that in the end our two friends were the ones facing us on the balcony at City Hall. [caption id="attachment_448" align="alignright" width="300"] Thom and Jeff with friends at their Cliff House reception. ©2013 Levi Smith Photography[/caption] Two days later we hosted a reception at the Cliff House, the location of our 2009 commitment ceremony. Four years ago we’d been joined by about 65 friends and family members. Last month over 110 of our friends and family were present; there were several dozen more people, including at least a half-dozen more kids, who might have been there but for other commitments, distance, or last-minute illness. Four years ago, there was one teenager present and no younger children. Last month nearly a dozen infants, toddlers, and pre-teens, along with a couple of teenagers, attended our reception. Several of these children call us “Uncle Thom” and “Uncle Jeff,” even though we have no biological connection, just a loving one that recognizes family ties beyond those of blood. We live in a world where love and legal marriage between two men or two women increasingly is not something to hide or to “protect” kids from, but rather something to celebrate, truly a family affair. We live in a world where these kids will grow up to be able to marry whomever they love, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Honestly, not too many years ago I would have said I wouldn’t expect to see that world in my lifetime. But at the Cliff House last month, I saw that it’s already arrived. [caption id="attachment_451" align="alignleft" width="300"] Just a few of the friends Thom & Jeff have made within the marriage equality movement. ©2013 Levi Smith Photography[/caption] The increase in the number of people celebrating with us was due almost entirely to the new friends and allies we’ve made in the past four years through our marriage equality advocacy; we considered our reception, in fact, to be as much a day of celebration for the hard work of so many to return the freedom to marry to California as it was specifically for the two of us. To that end, we asked that in lieu of gifts attendees consider making a donation to Marriage Equality USA; I’m overwhelmed by our friends’ generosity and very proud to note that our equality registry to date has raised nearly $2,700 to help MEUSA in its efforts to win the freedom to marry for the 37 remaining states where couples like Jeff and me still are denied this important civil right. That includes states like Virginia, my birthplace and my home for over 35 years. Jeff and I left Virginia for California, his home, in no small part due to the extreme homophobia of Virginia’s government and the absolute lack of any protections there for LGBT people in public accommodations, housing, employment, or relationship status. It remains legal in Virginia to fire an employee, even a state government employee, to refuse service at your place of business, or to refuse to rent or sell a home, for no reason other than that you disapprove of someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The current attorney general, once (though thankfully no longer) the front-runner to be the next governor, has called LGBT  people “destructive” and “soulless,” while the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor has made homophobic comments that make “destructive” and “soulless” sound almost like compliments in comparison. Still, things are getting better, even back there in the Commonwealth, if more slowly than we might wish. [caption id="attachment_453" align="alignright" width="300"] I say, old chap, it's time to bring marriage equality to the Old Dominion, what? ©2013 Levi Smith Photography[/caption] Recent news that the legal team headed by David Boies and Ted Olson that defeated Prop 8 is now challenging Virginia’s refusal to treat loving gay couples as anything more than strangers under the law is particularly welcome and heartening. Someday Jeff and I may be able to visit my birth family – his in-laws – with pride and optimism rather than the worry and dread based on the state considering our marriage invalid that so often accompanies our visits back there now. Thousands of couples like us, we hope, will before long have their own relationships treated with the legal recognition that is their human and civil right. It would be fitting, certainly, if the state that in Loving v. Virginia fought anti-miscegenation laws all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and lost, thereby resulting in bans on interracial marriage being overturned nationwide, were to provide same-sex couples our own version of Loving and the same end to all laws banning same-sex marriages. It’s long past time for the Commonwealth fully to live up to its motto, “Virginia is for lovers,” without the invisible disclaimer, “Void where gay.”

By MEUSA Director of Legal & Policy John Lewis and MEUSA National Media Director Stuart Gaffney An edited version of this article originally appeared in SF Bay Times, October 3, 2013: http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=18035 The latest California public opinion poll shows record support for marriage equality — 64% of likely voters and 61% percent of all adults. This news made us realize how wonderful it is when dreams really do come true, and when political goals that once seemed impossible are actually achieved. When the U.S. Supreme Court rulings ended Prop 8 and Section 3 of DOMA this summer, we wrote a press release for Marriage Equality USA saying that there would now be “more love and more marriage” than ever before. Yet we didn’t anticipate fully just how it would feel, landing somewhere over the rainbow — where instead of rallying for marriage equality in front of City Hall, we were getting invited to weddings inside City Hall. And for the first time we started having a whole new relationship to these weddings – in addition to getting wedding invitations, we started being invited to officiate. There truly is no better reward for a marriage equality activist! “By the power vested in me by the State of California, I pronounce you lawfully married spouses for life.” Those words have always held great meaning for us, not just because of the emotions we associate with weddings, but because they represent the first time we felt our government treating us as equal human beings, worthy of the full dignity and respect of the law. To be able now to say those words as officiants for couples saying “I do” is an amazing experience. No two couples are alike, and no two weddings are alike. We remember how the thousands of couples and families who lined up all day and even overnight in the rain outside San Francisco City Hall in February 2004 represented one of the most diverse gatherings of our community we had ever seen. And the couples we have been lucky enough to marry have been young and old, rich and poor, sick and healthy – just like the words in the wedding vows they recite. And now, without the deadline pressure couples felt in 2004 and again in 2008, couples are planning their happily ever afters with the greatest of love, care and creativity. One couple designed their own avatars. Another couple planned a fairytale honeymoon  literally — at Disneyland. Yet another couple had feminist wedding cake toppers – “Sisterhood is Powerful” and “Viva La Revolucion.” And another had no money for rings, but still shared a very personal moment of commitment and equality. And so on — the creativity is endless, and the only constant is the joy — and tears of joy — in the eyes of couples who may have been together for 5 years or 50 years, but weren’t sure they would live to see the day when they could finally hear wedding bells ring out for them. As we perform marriages for dear friends and total strangers alike, it’s hard to imagine a political cause with a “happier” ending than the movement for equal marriage rights in California. But much remains to be done as we work to achieve marriage equality nationwide, to attain full equality in all aspects of our lives, and to stop homophobia and transphobia in all their manifestations. We were reminded of the work ahead when we recently performed a same-sex couple’s “confidential” marriage ceremony, a legal marriage with no traceable public record of the names of the couple. The couple needed the confidential marriage because they had very real fears for their safety in their community if it became known they were married. But the love and affection they felt for each other, their joy at marrying, and their sense of dignity at being treated equally under the law was palpable as their eyes locked on each other as they said “I do.” The substantive legal benefits of marriage were also very important to this couple with very limited income and financial resources. The world is changing right before our eyes — one wedding at a time. The movement for full equality has been filled with an enormous array of emotions and will undoubtedly involve many more successes and challenges. As we move forward, experiencing and sharing the joy of success inspires us as a diverse community to reach even greater heights. As we celebrate with the newlyweds in San Francisco City Hall, there’s truly no place on earth we’d rather be.

By MEUSA Social Media Director Thom Watson One week from today, I expect my life paradoxically to stay pretty much exactly the same, yet at the same time to change utterly, in ways I’m not sure I truly understand or even can fully imagine. I expect my life to change, though, because people whose opinions in such matters I trust, people who already have undertaken the step I’m about to take, keep telling me it will. Next Thursday, you see, I’m getting married. On the one hand, my life will stay pretty much exactly the same. After all, back in June Jeff and I celebrated the ten-year anniversary of our first date. As of this month we’ve already been living together for a decade, nearly half of those years within the formal legal status of a California registered domestic partnership. We’ve already been paying joint state taxes; Jeff covers me on his employer’s health insurance plan; we share finances, the care and feeding of two cats, each other’s joys and sorrows, a warped sense of humor, and our bed. Obviously, marriage won’t change any of that. To be sure, we expect our day-to-day life the day after we say “I do” to go on largely just as it did the day prior. Nonetheless, I also expect next Thursday’s civil ceremony, the promises we will make, and the words and status that will be pronounced to and conferred upon us “by the power vested… by the state,” to be transformative. As Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA) noted in its amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this past winter, “Same-sex couples who have been able to marry have experienced great joy and have found that marriage profoundly deepens their love and commitment to each other.” In a conversation with Chris Geidner, Edie Windsor, the winsome octogenarian plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that resulted in the eradication of DOMA Section 3, the federal law that before this summer had prohibited the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex couples’ legally valid marriages, put it this way: “I ask all gay couples who have lived together a long time and got married, ‘Was it different the next morning?’ And everybody says yes, and they don’t know how to explain it. Marriage itself, you know, it’s a magic word, everybody knows what it means, it means love and commitment and trust… but there’s this extra thing when it was always denied to you. But it’s profound. Whatever loving was there, it becomes really profound loving.” Our friend and fellow MEUSA love warriors Ellen Pontac and Shelly Bailes, who have been together for nearly 40 years, married in 2004 (though that marriage heartbreakingly was made “null and void” by the California Supreme Court) and again, finally, in 2008. Ellen agrees with Edie’s sentiment, describing the personal, social, and political transformative power of marriage like this: “Being married changes not only the fact that you can say, ‘I’d like to introduce you to my wife,’ but it changes the way you feel inside, and the way the world perceives you. We have both a domestic partnership and a marriage. Getting married has actually made us realize how inadequate being a domestic partner is. Now that we are married, we never refer to ourselves as domestic partners or even conceive of ourselves as such – we only refer to ourselves as married.” Jeff and I are incredibly grateful that we now have the right to enter into a legal civil marriage here at home in California, and to have that marriage recognized by both our state and federal governments. We’re excitedly and nervously expectant about making our vows to one another at San Francisco’s City Hall, a location with particular sentimental significance for California’s marriage equality advocacy movement and for us, personally, and about experiencing these profound changes in our relationship as we express our love and commitment in a formalized way that is a very old and shared tradition, yet simultaneously a very new and completely unique experience for each couple who takes that step. At the same time, we’re also aware that many of our friends, brothers, and sisters across the country still are denied this same opportunity, just as we were until this past June, and even in the midst of our celebration and joy we remain mindful of the hard work that remains to be done to bring the freedom to marry to everyone in this country, without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity, and whether one lives in a red state or a blue one. Emma Lazarus famously wrote, in words and sentiment later echoed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” That’s why I volunteer for a group that advocates for the freedom to marry, and why I will continue to do so even now that my own freedom to marry in California has been secured, and even after I have exercised that freedom for myself. It’s why Jeff and I, in lieu of a traditional wedding gift registry, have set up an equality registry to benefit MEUSA and to help fund the ongoing fight to win marriage equality across the nation. It’s the hard work of organizations like MEUSA, AFER, Freedom to Marry, GetEQUAL, and so many others, that trained, encouraged, and enabled Jeff and me – and thousands like us – to be our own fierce advocates for our equality and to fight for our freedom, and that have played such critical roles in making it possible for us finally to marry next week. It reminds me a little of that famous television commercial catchphrase of the late 1980s, “I’m not just the president of the Hair Club for Men, I’m also a client.” In that vein, I’m not just a Marriage Equality USA volunteer, I’m also a client. And I can endorse it not just in principle, but because it has worked so well for me personally.