14 words
Like so many other young kids, I remember having to learn these words, yet not their meaning;
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another
Later still I actually heard the words of a man from Alabama that, while beautifully spoken, seemed to upset people more than settle them, I was too young and I didn't understand the meaning;
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I took history as a boy and had to learn these words, but didn't understand their meaning;
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
To graduate high school, I had to learn these words, while I loosely understood their interaction, like so many I didn't understand their meaning;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity....
Several months ago, there was a new set of words, only 14 of them, that made me understand all the rest of them with crystal clarity;
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
It wasn't about how I felt about marriage. I really don't believe it is about marriage at all.
It is about a fight as old as this country, a fight that started before America and why it was founded.
It is about a tyrannical majority forcing it views on a specified group of people.
It is about the struggles of a repressed group trying to find equality in a country that would deny the the basic rights to which they are entitled because of their sex, the color of their skin or who they choose to love.
It seems "self-evident" that these struggles never needed occur, yet they all have.
Today, in a courtroom, far away in California, people will struggle to help you and me and others find that same meaning.
This will not be the last battle in this fight, but I pray it becomes the beginning of the last.
Like so many before me, I sit, I hope and I pray in silence, and honestly, sometimes in fear, that their words find their way towards freeing me.
I live in hope their words have meaning.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another
Later still I actually heard the words of a man from Alabama that, while beautifully spoken, seemed to upset people more than settle them, I was too young and I didn't understand the meaning;
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I took history as a boy and had to learn these words, but didn't understand their meaning;
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
To graduate high school, I had to learn these words, while I loosely understood their interaction, like so many I didn't understand their meaning;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity....
Several months ago, there was a new set of words, only 14 of them, that made me understand all the rest of them with crystal clarity;
Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
It wasn't about how I felt about marriage. I really don't believe it is about marriage at all.
It is about a fight as old as this country, a fight that started before America and why it was founded.
It is about a tyrannical majority forcing it views on a specified group of people.
It is about the struggles of a repressed group trying to find equality in a country that would deny the the basic rights to which they are entitled because of their sex, the color of their skin or who they choose to love.
It seems "self-evident" that these struggles never needed occur, yet they all have.
Today, in a courtroom, far away in California, people will struggle to help you and me and others find that same meaning.
This will not be the last battle in this fight, but I pray it becomes the beginning of the last.
Like so many before me, I sit, I hope and I pray in silence, and honestly, sometimes in fear, that their words find their way towards freeing me.
I live in hope their words have meaning.