The United States Pledge of Allegiance states powerfully that the country's citizens are entitled to enjoy "liberty and justice for all".But it seems some in the nation's capitol - Washington DC - are uncomfortable with the notion of equality when it comes to dispensing "liberty and justice" to their gay and lesbian neighbors who might just want to use their liberty and equality to get married.
Ian Johnson, Out Now
December 28, 2009
Topics: Homophobia. LGBT market. Gay and lesbian equality. US lesbian and gay marketing. Macy's department store. Gay and lesbian advertising. US GLBT market. Washington DC council votes for marriage equality - conservative opponents rebel.
One image sticks in my mind from all my many work-related travels this year - a bus with an ad saying "Let the people vote on marriage" that passed by the bus I was traveling on literally at the very same moment the White House flashed into frame behind.'They' didn't even need to add the word "gay" into their advertising.
It was clear what the people that paid to place this advertisement into the Washington DC metro system advertising network were up to.
Betting against gay marriage at the ballot box has become a fruitful tactic for anti-gay campaigners in the past couple of years.
They were playing a numbers game.
So far, where gay marriage equality has been put to a vote - for example in the US states of Maine and California - previously legal gay marriage equality has been voted down by way of concerted pushes from a strongly organized, and well-financed, anti-gay conservative+religious coalition.
Yet usually by a wafer-thin majority of impassioned anti-gay voters.
Leading to the rather preposterous situation that legal gay marriages, such as that of Ellen DeGeneres, are put into question.
I continue to believe strongly that - in line with increasing numbers of countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and more - the US will learn that there is nothing to fear from their gay and lesbian citizens taking marriage vows.
The voters of Washington DC may just get to learn that gay and lesbian marriage is an additional stability factor in societies where traditional heterosexual marriage too often lets down all the participants involved - each of the partners and their children.
Money, gay marketing and love
GayMarketNews.com has reported regularly on the power of the gay and lesbian honeymoons and weddings market.
We even covered the fact that Macy's - a mainstream US department store brand - was delighted to welcome gay marriage to California with same-gender wedding registries. Are they being 'politically correct'? Sure. Are they being smart business-people? Absolutely.
Far more powerfully though - GayMarketNews.com has made the point often over the years that gay marriage is about one thing even more important than the fundamental power of equality - it is about love.
The fact that lesbians and gay men are not traditionally welcomed by society to marry means that their decision to do so - where it becomes available to them - is almost always taken very seriously indeed, knowing that as with so much of modern gay and lesbian lives, we are having to blaze a trail for others through our actions today as we build the future for those who follow us.
Most gays and lesbians do not think of a quickie wedding in Vegas as their ultimate idea of getting married.
They think of the solemnity and love encapsulated in the taking of public vows for the one they love.
And a more mature approach to love and marriage looks like a healthy thing for any civilized society.
Congratulations to the lesbians and gay men in Washington DC who, from March 2010, will hopefully get to experience this gay marriage equality that many countries in the rest of the world now - happily - take for granted.
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