Some internet friends of ours make the news:
Ordinary people vowing to marry
(excerpts)
In many ways, they are a typical suburban couple.
They spend their weekends remodeling their tidy three-bedroom house, which sits on a quiet street in the Main Line community of Strafford. They enjoy gardening and cooking and spoiling their dog, Cybil.
They both come from large, traditional Catholic families, and they dote on their 17 nieces and nephews.
Now in their early 50s, they prefer quiet nights at home to going out on the town. They pay their taxes on time, look in on sick neighbors, and vote each election.
They are ordinary in all ways but one: Tim Dineen and Victor Martorano, a couple for nine years, are homosexuals. And that puts them squarely in the middle of the national debate on same-sex marriage.
...
But more important to the couple is what marriage stands for - a public acknowledgment of a couple's love and lifelong commitment. "Marriage is a stabilizing force in society," Dineen says, "and we want to be part of that stabilization."
After all, they consider themselves solid members of the community. And so do their neighbors. As Peg Schwartz, 73 and a registered Republican, told me later: "I can't say enough about them. They really could not be better neighbors. They are delightful. They're just nice, kind, caring people, and that's what you want in a neighbor." Having them next door has softened her position on gay marriage, she said. "If that makes them happy, then that's all that counts."
der Brucer (and, yes, Cybil is a Shepherd)
