The chapel at the University of Virginia hosted its first same-sex commitment ceremony over the summer. Very cool. Of course, since it was in Virginia, it didn’t have the status of law, but the couple is planning to get married in Washington, D.C. in November, where it will be legal.
I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that this was allowed. It’s always been hard to peg UVa on the political spectrum. When I was there, it was said that compared to the Ivies, UVa was conservative, but compared to the other top college in Virginia, it was liberal. Charlottesville, of course, is a bastion of blue in central Virginia.
It’s Virginia, so I’ll chalk it up in the win column, legally binding or not. One more small battle won in a long war. It must be maddening to be a homophobic bigot these days. The war is being lost, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. They’ll still be there, just as anti-black racists remain, but their numbers will shrink and mainstream society is slowly but surely making outcasts of the homophobes and embracing gay people as just regular people like everyone else. And isn’t that nice?