As Zerlina said earlier this morning, President Obama’s
announcement yesterday that he believes that same sex couples
should be allowed to get married was significant. It represents
an historic turning point in this particular struggle for
American civil rights. This video, by Shane Bitney Crone, is
about what it can look like, and feel like, when people are
forced to live and love without those rights. Shane was not
married to his partner of six years, Tom. And when Tom died, his
family, who had never accepted their son’s homosexuality, cut
Shane out, of their lives and of their version of Tom’s life.
Shane was threatened with physical violence if he came to Tom’s
funeral. This story, and many thousands more like it, are a part
of America’s history of denying civil rights to LGBT people.
That history should never be forgotten. But yesterday, the
President took an important step toward leaving that history
behind.