Twenty years ago, I was a field organizer in the Oregon marriage campaigns. I remember a team of volunteers coming back from knocking on doors, wide-eyed and breathing hard as they told the story of being chased from a voter’s property with a shotgun after disclosing that they were there to talk about same-sex marriage. As a young lawyer, I had studied contracts and constitutions, but as an organizer, I had a front row seat to the deep emotional connection that people had to the idea of marriage.
Marriage is not just one thing. It’s a contract. A complicated agreement between not only the partners, but the state as well. An agreement that allows — and guarantees — rights to flow from the state to the couple and its members. That’s why we’re talking about legal recognition in the first place. It’s also a meaningful, public demonstration of the love between two people. For many, it represents the validation of a couple’s union, and an ideal to which many aspire. Both of these things are important, and the combination makes marriage a talisman — something both proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage hold close to as a proxy for acceptance and protection, if not equality.
I remember the day after we lost marriage in Oregon. I remember driving up the I-5 corridor on a crystal-clear day, looking at incredibly beautiful mountains, and having a moment where I realized that the people around me — the majority of the people in the state — didn’t think that I could or should experience joy or happiness because of who I loved.