Gay marriage part of a long struggle

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/13200922-452/gay-marriage-part-of-a-long-struggle.html

Neil steinberg nsteinberg@suntimes.com June 16, 2012 1:46AM

Murderers can marry. Even Richard Ramirez, a k a the Night Stalker, wed in a ceremony in California’s San Quentin Prison in 1996.

No religious organization protested the nuptials of the serial killer and rapist on Death Row, even though murder is considered the most extreme Biblical sin.

John Wayne Gacy received a number of marriage proposals while in prison. He didn’t accept any, but had he, neither faith nor law would have stood in his way, or suggested his marriage somehow tainted the institution of wedlock.

This isn’t true for gays, who are denied the right to marry in most of the United States, with the exception of seven states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Iowa and Washington, as well as Washington, D.C. Eleven states — including Illinois — allow civil unions, which offer the legal protections of marriage.