gay marriage and debates with grandpa

This afternoon, the 17th Annual Savannah Film Festival screened "Limited Partnership"...and I found myself flashing back to me as a 17-year-old, debating gay rights with my grandfather.
I was in tears for most of the documentary.
I remembered reading about two men who had gotten married to each other, right here in the USA. The year was 1975. That summer, on one of our trips to Waycross to "vacation" with my mother's folks, Grandpa and I started having our debates.
On what topics?
The differences between religions.
Women's rights, in and out of the workplace.
Flat tax versus the pro rata type still in use.
Gay rights... and gay marriage.

I had not realized, until I was watching the film, that THESE men, the couple in THIS true story, were the ones which had instigated some of our debates.
Tony Sullivan and Richard Adams.
An Australian and a Filipino-American.
The two men were successful in obtaining a marriage certificate in Boulder, Colorado, on April 21, 1975. It wasn't because gay marriage was legal there...but it wasn't illegal, either.
Unfortunately, the federal government refused to recognize the marriage as bona fide. Tony was to be deported anyway. And so the story unfolded.
All I could think about was how much I missed Grandpa.
I remembered Mama and Grandma talking in the kitchen, aghast and amazed that he and I were having such discussions.
I was raised Southern, in the 1960's and 1970's, and James Robert Lee, my grandfather, was a former traveling Baptist minister.
Take a moment and try to consider that.
It truly was a momentous thing for a teen-aged girl to be holding such debates with her almost 60-year-old elder in a small town in Georgia.
And now I was in the presence of one of the men who had been the subject of some of our discussions.
Tony Sullivan was there for a post-screening Q & A session.
I think I cried through most of that, too. He was looking at me, as you can see in the photo above, no doubt curious about why his story had such an effect on me.
I have so many friends, through the decades, who have had to deal with this kind of strife.
How sad to think there is still so much bias in the world.
Yes, it's getting better... but so slowly.
It's been almost forty years since these two men wed. Richard died last year, leaving Tony alone to continue the fight for all people, everywhere, to marry the one they love, to make that commitment for life.
I hope that fight will soon be over.
Love is such a precious blessing. Two in love should be able to lawfully become one.