These days most Americans are in favor of Marriage Equality.  Poll after poll confirms it.  But the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties oppose it.  The president likes to add that he's "evolving".  (On May 9, 2012, the president updated his view.  He now says he supports marriage equality; however, none of the policies discussed below has changed.)  Meanwhile, they keep marriage and family a privilege for people like them, not a right for all Americans.

So Marriage Equality is yet another area where the party system has been opposing our wishes, holding us back and shamefully letting us down.  

My family has been in the front line of the fight for marriage equality for more than 60 years, when interracial marriages like theirs were illegal in 28 states.  But Dr Martin Luther King wasn't just fighting for the rights of people of color.  He was fighting for Equal Rights -- Freedom for all Americans and all human beings.  

Our current policies are hazardous to families everywhere, especially US soldiers and veterans.  In fact they literally create a new class of orphan: by opposing Marriage Equality while ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, our leaders have a ensured that the family of a same-sex parent killed in the military won't be compensated, since they're not legally a family.  Their children, and their children's surviving parent (if any), won't qualify for Veteran's Benefits, Social Security benefits -- literally more than 1000 federal rights.  Rather than stand up for those families and those veterans, corrupt politicians calculate whether standing up for equality could lose them votes.

This informal video is from back when I first began thinking about running for Senate - when Don't Ask Don't Tell was first reversed.