When Congress ends its 'legislative day' today, the clock will have run out on the hopes of various clergy, Republican legislators, and bigots that Congress would intervene to prevent Washington DC's equal marriage rights legislation from taking effect.
It turned out that these hopes were mostly wishful thinking. More likely were various court challenges, but in case after case, ruling after ruling, the courts refused to either issue a stay or allow a ballot initiative overturning the new law, ruling that such a ballot would indeed be a violation of DC's Human Rights Act.
And so, when they wake up tomorrow, thousands of couples now residing in our nation's capital will have the right to marry the person on the other side of the bed!
Sort of. Yes, they will be able to apply for and get a license; yes, they will be able to have a legal wedding ceremony; yes they will be able to tell anyone who asks that they are married, and yes,they will have a piece of paper that says they are legally married.
But that piece of paper will still mean nothing when they cross the Potomac. (The jury is out on whether it will mean anything when they cross into Maryland). It will mean nothing when they go to fill out their Federal Income Tax forms. It will mean nothing when one of them gets sick on vacation in Florida and the other wants to visit. It will mean nothing to immigration authorities should one of them not be a US citizen.
Congressmen and Senators will now be walking daily by men and women who are legally married in the city where they all work, but whom either by their vote or by their refusal to vote are allowing these same people to still be treated as second class citizens.
The President of the United States will now likely see people working in the White House who will become married in the eyes of the city in which they both reside. He will walk by these people every day; people whom he promised to be a 'fierce advocate' for, but has yet to advocate for, let alone fiercely. (I don't know if he will look the other way. Perhaps he'll just look down.)
And the nine justices of the Supreme Court -- those same nine who are likely to eventually decide the fate of married same-sex couples across these United States -- may one day soon reflect on the paradox of working and living among legally married same-sex couples in the very building where it was ordained that 'separate is not equal', but for whom across the entire country it is still not so.
Face to face. Day to day. Maybe it will help.