Love Wins In The End
The United States general election in 2012 saw the continued pendulum shift in public opinion over marriage equality as three states, Maine, Maryland, and Washington approved referendums granting same-sex couples the same right to marry as heterosexual couples.
Despite it not being recognized at the time on a federal level, nine states did legally permit same-sex marriage while others had/have laws acknowledging these marriages and/or permit certain civil unions. At the same time, several states passed constitutional bans on any type of marriage or legal partnership between same-sex couples.
I created this handwritten piece to highlight the passing of Referendum 74 in Washington State on election night, 6 November 2012, to show my support for what is not an issue over “traditional marriage” or “gay marriage” or even marriage at all, but an issue vastly superior: Equal Rights, that all citizens be treated equal under the law. Among the many rights that are granted—including the right to vote, the right to bear arms, the right to freedom of religion—is the understood fundamental right to love and to love whomever one chooses to love. These are rights that are not doled out or denied based upon personal opinion and belief. They are given to all whether or not we choose to support them, whether or not we choose to exercise them. Like those rights, love has no race, love has no gender, love has no creed. Love does not discriminate nor does it castigate. You can advocate against it but you cannot argue its power. Because as civil issues throughout history have shown, at the end of the day justice does prevail and love does win.
“In a 5–4 decision issued on 26 June 2013, the Supreme Court found Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional, ‘as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment.’ The Court held that the Constitution prevented the federal government from treating state-sanctioned heterosexual marriages differently than state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, and that such differentiation ‘demean[ed] the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects.’”
SOURCES
United States v. Windsor
Justices to Hear Two Challenges on Gay Marriage
PHOTOGRAPHY
Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
DOWNLOAD
iPhone
iPad
1280x800
1440x900
1680x1050
1920x1200
2560x1440