Senator Savino and Marriage Equality

Roman Catholic: Check
Straight Woman: Check
Relatively conservative district: Check
Visionary view on marriage equality: Check

Savino's views are so close to my own on this issue, I can imagine myself making her recent speech on the floor of the New York State Senate. Her courage is undeniable.

Marriage equality will eventually be almost universally accepted under the law. It will take years but it will happen. Every civil rights struggle in modern history had a Senator Savino (and many more like her) and also had opponents. In 25 years, when the dust settles, Senator Savino can say that she was on the right side of the issue when it wasn't easy. Today's opponents will not be able to claim that. Indeed, with few exceptions, the expansion of civil rights has always been made difficult and often delayed by legislators who ended up apologizing many years later for not having the courage to cast a vote in favor of eliminating discrimination in all its forms. Few pay much attention to those kinds of apologies. The people we eventually honor are those who stuck their necks out when it was hard and politically risky. Senator Savino will be honored. Many of her colleagues in the State Senate will not. She will sleep well at night knowing that she did the right thing when it mattered the most. I hope that the ones who did nothing or were in opposition realize that they weren't really leaders and that their "principled" positions will be thrown into a dumpster along with "separate but equal", "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue", or told women that they couldn't vote or that it was okay to force black citizens to sit at the back of a bus or drink from a different water fountain.

Some of us take these rights for granted. A great deal of blood was shed, a great many elections lost and many professional reputations were damaged or destroyed for having a vision of equality that was ahead of societal pressure to maintain an ugly status quo. These people turn out to be heroes, sometimes while they were still alive and many more long after they died.

When will we all learn a lesson or two from history? Senator Savino has already done it.