From last Saturday’s Fresno Bee, via Box Turtle Bulletin, comes this little snippet about a straight religious woman, Renee, and her boss Michael, a gay man planning to wed his partner of 16 years.  The money quote is at the end.

DeMusiak, 52, the florist shop employee, grew up with the idea that marriage meant only a man and a woman.

“I just always went by the Bible. Mom is mom and dad is dad. I was never really for gays getting married,” she says.

But in November, she plans to vote against the ban and for same-sex marriage.

She had only worked at Chase Flower Shop for two months when her dog got sick and needed expensive medical care.

“Michael gave me his credit card and told me to take care of her,” she says. “I’d never vote against him.”

She says her own search for a mate has been the stuff of blues songs: cheating men, hurt, and true love never arriving.

“I’m struggling to find someone. I see gay couples come in here all the time who have had better luck than me. It’s so important to have someone love you for who and what you truly are,” she says.

“I know religion is really going to come down on this one, but I just don’t think I can be opposed any more. I vote for people to be happy.”

Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest.

California State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George, writing for the majority in today’s ruling in favor of marriage equality.

And a comment from me: Thank you, Lord. Let justice roll.

Mark Casey guest-blogs at Bilerico on why “one man, one woman” political rhetoric makes no sense in a world where one in 4,000 people is born intersex.

Christopher at Betwixt and Between goes on a bit of a rant over the false dichotomy between academia and activism.

At EthicsDaily.com, author John Grisham offers Baptists three suggestions for restoring their good name–a Crossing the T “must-read!”

I discovered this video on the Family Equality Council blog this morning, though apparently it’s been around for a while. It’s a clip from a children’s TV program from the Netherlands, and the little star singing a song called “Two Fathers.” It made me cry–I think because truth can sound so beautiful coming from the lips of a child.

Today’s Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has a story on someone who might strike you as an unlikely LGBT rights activist, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh political science instructor Dr. Bill McConkey. McConkey calls himself a “Christian, straight, married, father of seven” and a life-long Republican. The twist?

I also have a gay daughter. People have asked me, would you have filed this suit if it wasn’t for your daughter? To be real honest, maybe not. Maybe I would have just ranted and raved in my classrooms and written letters to the editor and fumed off to the side. But because of her, it also became a personal issue and I feel like I’m fighting for my kid. I’m a family man above all.

Sort of takes that whole “pro-family” politico-semantic domain and looks at it from a different angle, doesn’t it? When asked how his daughter reacted to his legal challenge to Wisconsin’s Marriage Amendment, McConkey said:

She tells me that she’s really proud of me. And I’m glad she is. She did not ask me to do this. As a matter of fact, there was some trepidation on her part because we do have the same last name and worried she would be singled out for difficulty. We talked about that, and she decided it was worth the risk.

Courage, apparently, is something you learn from your parents.

(Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin and Timothy Kincaid.)