When I got married, just a few years after moving to Arizona, I took doing so rather for granted. To say my spouse and I were happy to be together would be a vast understatement–we were overjoyed, giddy, beyond-words about being together–but the actual act of marriage, the filling out of paperwork to make official what we already knew, that we took rather lightly. We were going to be together forever, after all, whether or not we had a piece of paper saying so.
I don’t take that piece of paper for granted any longer. Not because anything above is any less true now than it was the day we got married, but because along with the rest of our country we’ve witnessing couples fighting for that piece of paper I once so easily dismissed. I know there are those who worry that marriage equality will lessen the sanctity of existing marriages, but to me it’s a reminder of how valuable and worth fighting for the right to marry is–something that makes marriage more precious, not less.
But before and ahead of any of that, marriage equality is a fundamental civil rights victory. And that’s why I’m thrilled that today, Arizona has lifted its ban on same-sex marriages, and that right now, downtown in my own city, marriage licenses are being issued.