I find this news interesting:
Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband [Dean Hara] said.
Mr. Studds has been in the news lately for something that happened more than three decades ago. (Read the story if you don’t know what it is, or why it’s relevant.) But that’s not the interesting part. That last part, his husband, is the key.
A major newspaper can report that as part of the story without including sidebar’s about the deteriorating state of Massachusetts as a result. That’s instructive. But the accompanying fact of Mr. Hara’s involvement in making decisions prior to the death of Mr. Studds shows how vital marriage equality is to America. In any other state, Mr. Hara would be left out of such decisions. It’s possible, perhaps probable, that the person he loves would have died alone had the highest court in Massachusetts not acknowledged that the state must treat every citizen the same. That would’ve been the tragedy, not the equal exercise of civil rights.