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States are talking about marriage equality. Are you?

Google News Comment
March 6, 2009

When it passed a civil union bill out of committee to the floor for consideration Thursday, the Illinois House of Representatives took a step in the direction of equality this week. Mechanisms such as civil union and domestic partnership provide gay couples and their families with important responsibilities and protections otherwise withheld, but fall short of the full security and meaning that come with the freedom to marry. Because civil union is not equal to marriage itself, the Vermont legislative leadership announced Thursday that it would move forward on a marriage bill this session and expected to bring it to the governor's desk soon. Similar measures are advancing in other states this year, too.

With legislatures, courts, and even the electorate weighing the need to end the exclusion of gay couples from marriage, there is greater opportunity, and greater urgency, for each one of us to promote conversations about why marriage equality matters. The more people talk to others, the more they come to see there is no good reason to deny couples who've made a personal commitment in life, the equal commitment under law that is marriage.

You are the best messenger to make the case to the people in your life. Join in the conversation about the freedom to marry at www.freedomtomarry.org.