Gay Marriage in Portland

Bean over at Alas informs us that Multnomah county will start marrying same-sex couples starting tomorrow. Oh the good news keeps rolling in.

While I'm on the subject, I strongly recommend reading this post by August Pollak. I'll try to summarize his point and how I feel about the issue.

Mainly, some people (like, sadly, Jesse Jackson) are saying that gay marriage isn't civil rights since gays don't have it as bad as blacks did. And they're both right and wrong. It is civil rights, but gays are not facing the same persecution that blacks faced not half a century ago. They're allowed to vote, lynchings aren't socially acceptable, and so on. But, as August points out, this is all good news:

That's why you have to keep a more positive mind about this- gay rights aren't a matter of plausibility, they're a matter of time. Bush's amendment is a recognition of this fact- as such, he's desperate to try and remove rights from a group of people in light of courts finally recognizing that these rights always existed. Equality for gays is aleady in the books; it's a matter of how long people in this country will take to open them.

See, it's all inevitable. And that's why what San Francisco, New Mexico, New Paltz, NY, and now Portland are doing is so exciting. This is one of the major steps forward in civil rights of our time. For those like me, born after say 1970, it is possibly the greatest single step forward in our lifetimes.

So, sit back and enjoy for now. The issue isn't going away anytime soon.