The Tipping Point

Matt Baume on why we are winning the marriage equality fight:

What’s hastening along this shift in public opinion? Conversations. The more people talk about gay couples, the more comfortable they are with them. And it doesn’t even seem to matter what people say — lord knows, there’ve been plenty of anti-gay conversations lately — every conversation keeps nudging public opinion towards equality. So the anti-gay-couple groups like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) are standing in quicksand: the more they keep struggling, the faster they sink. Next month, the California Supreme Court will rule on Prop 8 — and no matter the outcome, it’ll nudge public opinion yet again.

I couldn't help but notice the Vows section of the NYT yesterday. Here's one notice:

Jon Cooper and Robert Cooper were married Thursday at Binney Park in Old Greenwich, Conn. Ann S. Isaacson, a justice of the peace in Greenwich, officiated… Robert Cooper, 51, legally changed his surname 21 years ago, soon after the first of the couple’s five children was adopted. He is a member of the board of the Family Service League, a nonprofit organization in Suffolk County that offers assistance to needy families.

This couple has been together for more than two decades, seem like model citizens and have brought up five adopted children. At what point do gay people start getting the respect so many deserve?

(hat tip: Kincaid)