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Marriage is about two people being in love – Not about whether the two people are a man and a woman, or two men and two women

As a wedding photographer I see men and women on the happiest day of their life, the day they get to unite themselves forever with the person they love.  I think that everyone should be allowed to marry the person they love, it is a feeling like no other to stand beside the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and commit yourself in front of God, and your friends and family forever.  I can’t see how a country with all of the freedoms provided to us can even come up with, let alone rationalize the Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage between two committed loving gay partners doesn’t hurt family values, it doesn’t make me any less married to my husband, it doesn’t change a thing for me, I will always be married to my husband.  Nobody is saying that by allowing committed gay couples to marry that my marriage or that of my daughter or my grandparents will be invalidated, nothing will change in our marriages, life goes on as normal.  The only thing that will happen is that other couples will be allowed the same basic legal rights I have to visit my husband in the hospital, to be legally seen as the most important person in their life. I don’t really know how to put in words how I feel, because I can’t fathom how ANYONE can find two people committing themselves to each other as wrong, I don’t see the issue.  In my childhood I can remember the issues when a friends older sister chose “To live in sin” with her boyfriend and pretty much the whole world exploded over that issue.  Now we have the government telling us that two adults who want to commit themselves to one another can’t.  We have come a long way haven’t we? Today as the Supreme Court hears arguments on this, think to yourself, what would you do if someone took away your right to choose to marry, maybe the government will decide that we need no more people with red hair so if you and the person you love have the genes that might create a child with red hair, you won’t be allowed to marry.  It’s stupid, but in my mind so is DOMA and Prop 8.  Realize that while declaring either of these as Constitutional will not effect the majority of us, because our lives and marriages won’t change in one tiny bit, it is huge for others in our country as the Supreme Court gets to decide if they deserve the same basic rights to choose who they would like to marry that we get. I hope that someday, I will be able to photograph a “legal” marriage ceremony between any two people who choose to get married in the states of Missouri and Kansas, but until then I guess I will settle for photographing commitment ceremonies and still enjoy seeing two people in love embark on a journey together, as special in my eyes at least.