I have two good friends who, on the night they got married a few years back, placed a large custom sticker on the back of the window of their car which boldly and playfully exclaimed \u201cLove Explosion.\u201d\u00a0 I have always thought it to be so wonderfully fitting to describe their relationship as a \u201clove explosion\u201d and still find myself smiling, even today, many years later, at the mere mention of it.<\/p>\n
At this moment, I can\u2019t think of a more appropriate phrase than a \u201clove explosion\u201d to describe what has happened in our country today, June 26, 2013, as the Supreme Court of the United States of America overturned the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law passed on September\u00a021, 1996,\u00a0which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed under the laws of other states, effectively barring same-sex married couples from receiving federal marriage benefits. The victory means the federal government must recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples married in the 12 states that allow same-sex marriage, plus the District of Columbia, and give them the same benefits that they had been previously denied under the DOMA.<\/p>\n
This landmark decision is cause for celebration not only among those in the gay community, but for anyone who counts themselves among those who yearn for the day when all<\/i> human beings on our planet will be able to freely express and experience love, absent judgment, absent restrictions, a day when everyone will be afforded equal opportunities in every aspect of their lives. And this historic ruling today by the United States Supreme Court is a very good indicator that we are indeed headed in that direction.\u00a0 Perhaps not as swiftly or speedily as many of us would truly desire, but, yes, the shift is definitely happening.<\/p>\n
Events like this in our human experience help us to understand more clearly just how vast and limitless and immeasurable Love is.\u00a0 How silly for us human beings to think for one nanosecond that we could contain Love inside any<\/i> kind of container, and somehow then attempt to keep it there by sternly guarding it with our narrow rules and stiff laws.\u00a0 How naive of some people on this planet to believe that we could place boundaries on that which is boundless and eternal.\u00a0 How peculiar that so many people thought they could define in human terms that which has demonstrated itself time and time again to exist outside the limited parameters of our language.<\/p>\n
Love.<\/p>\n
Love is all there is.<\/p>\n
There is nothing but Love.<\/p>\n
And try as we might to control, manipulate, restrict, quell, morph, or ignore the ways in which Love is choosing to be expressed in our lives, Love will pour forth, Love will radiate from the heartbeat of the universe, and Love will explode from the purest place of peace and joy.\u00a0 It will not differentiate between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman.\u00a0 It will not subdue or enhance its presence based on differing skin colors or countries of origin or religious preferences.\u00a0 It simply cannot.\u00a0 We can imagine<\/i> that it can.\u00a0 We can believe<\/i> that it can.\u00a0 And if we do not stop the insanity of thinking we get to choose who is allowed or who is denied Love, then our experience<\/i> of Love will be one that reflects those narrow choices.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, on this day, these revolutionary words were authored by United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, reflecting the New Tomorrow that we here at \u201cThe Global Conversation\u201d are honored and overjoyed to stand witness to and share:<\/p>\n
\u201cDOMA undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages; for it tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition. This places same-sex couples in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage. The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, see Lawrence, 539 U. S. 558, and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n