The tipping point.

The article discusses the implications for gay equality of May 17, 2004, the day when Massachusetts becomes the first state in U.S. history to issue fully legal marriage licenses to same-sex couples. For gay men and lesbians, marriage rights have arrived at a wonderful and perplexing moment, especially since there was never much support for the idea in years past. When a few Hawaiians began to push for marriage equality in the early 1990s most gay men and lesbians scoffed at such a thought. Marriage was for straight people who wanted the kind of life that was supposed to be completely foreign to gays. But along the zigzag path to equality, same-sex partners found that they had a lot more in common with straight couples than they originally thought. Not that they crave a yearly tax break or desperately want to register for fancy gifts. It's simpler than that: Gays and lesbians want to live with the person they love and be treated like normal Americans. These days even gays who shun the altar generally agree that everyone should have the option to get the benefits that come with tying the knot and the protections that come with ending a marriage in divorce court. Marriage equality is a capstone for gay men and lesbians after years of enduring discrimination and prejudice. It is the tipping point after which all other rights will come as a matter of course: workplace protections, adoption laws that include gay parents, inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, and so on. The passage of the antigay-marriage constitutional amendment in Massachusetts on March 29 began a process that could outlaw same-sex marriage and establish civil unions in the state by late 2006.