Yes!

Today the DC City Council took the first of two votes to decide whether to pass legislation to allow for gay marriage in the District of Columbia. I'd written a post in October about my disappointment that the Council Member who represents the ward where we live was in opposition to the bill before it was even presented. I even included a bit of the e-mail exchange I'd had with him back then trying to get him to consider being a co-sponsor of the bill at that time. He did not ultimately sign on as a co-sponsor in October and I felt bad, but since such a majority was in favor of the bill, in a way his vote wasn't important. But to me it was. He knew me and my family and maybe I took it a little personally.

So as I watched the hearing live online this morning, I actually started to cry when he began speaking because he was explaining that after a lot of deliberation, he'd changed his mind! He actually voted "YES" today! I got Su on the phone once I realized that he was providing a rationale for voting "yes" and so we both heard him vote "AYE".

I am so happy! I know that he's going to get a lot of pushback from some of his constituents, but his remarks regarding discrimination were excellent. I'm sure they will be published later but for now all I remember is that he said he could not vote to discriminate against people.

I just wrote him a note to thank him. I had not idea that he was going to vote "yes". What a wonderful thing it was to see and hear! The measure passed today by a vote of 11 "yes" votes to 2 "no" votes. -Monica

P.S. After the final vote around Dec. 15th, the mayor has already said he will sign it and then it will go to congress for a 30 day reveiw before becoming law (if congress doesn't do anything to stop it). Wow!