“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Dr. King
Last night’s wedding at the Grammy’s was not just about showing same-sex couples getting married, it was also an opportunity to show the long arc of civil rights that began over a century ago with the Women’s Rights movement, and was carried forward half a century ago with the American Civil Rights movement, is now bringing forth a new harvest of Marriage Equality. An African American woman was the celebrant at a wedding for couples of a variety of backgrounds. Some of the pairing were same-sex, some of them were multi-ethnic, and they all were beautiful. The entire scene – not just the same-sex unions – would have been described as “blasphemous” and a rejection of “biblical values” by the fundamentalists and bigots of (only recently) by-gone decades.
The fight for marriage equality is not the “LGBT rights” movement, it is the continuation of a journey that has spanned generations, a journey to understand our faiths and our traditions in a way that liberates them from the prejudices, ignorance, provincialism, and ethno-centrism of our ancestors.
Having millions of people celebrate last night’s wedding wasn’t a victory, because we are not in a battle that can ever be fully won. It was, however, a reminder that we are one step nearer to that hope of beloved community, and bending ever closer toward justice.