Think marriage is an outmoded, assimilationist institution? Relatively unimportant on the spectrum of LGBT rights issues? Not worth focusing on or fighting for?

Tell that to couples like John Arthur and Jim Obergefell, or Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, who waited for decades to legally marry and were able to just in time. Or tell that to someone like Derence Kernek, whose beloved partner Ed Watson died in 2011 before they ever had the chance.

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Marriage matters, folks.

John Arthur and Jim Obergefell have been together for more than 20  years. When the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act last month, they decided that they wanted to marry.

But there were two major problems: the couple lives in Ohio – which has a constitutional marriage discrimination amendment that makes same-sex marriages illegal — and John is bedridden with a debilitating terminal disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which progressively robs its victims of voluntary muscle function.

Full story on The Bilerico Project

Anthony Venn-Brown