This Pride season, I’m beaming on almost every level, and there is so much that could be listed here. Let me start with a call I received this past Tuesday. It was from the man in charge of issuing marriage licenses in Philadelphia: Register of Wills Ron Donatucci. The reason for his call? He wanted to personally let me know that Philadelphia had just issued its 200th marriage license to a same-sex couple. You could hear the personal pride in his voice as he told me this.
His assistant, Guy Sabelli, then told me that many of the 200 couples wanted to tell their stories to the clerks who were filling out the information. Most have been together 20 years or more and never expected to see this day.
Donatucci’s office has been so touched by the stories they are hearing that they now are coordinating with judges to help speed the system. This is gay Pride by our allies.
Many of you recall this column explaining why Donatucci couldn’t hand out licenses earlier, but noting his desire to do so as soon as the court allowed. And it now is no secret that his office was staffed on a primary-election day to handle the same-sex couples who began arriving shortly after the ruling was announced.
This is personal pride for me since my Pride battle has always been, now for over 45 years, to create a relationship between government and our community. And what a joy it is to see government as happy as we are with our equality victory. In those early days of this struggle, we could only count on our own LGBT community. But today we have non-LGBT allies — that is what this year means to me. It also means taking pride in our community and all those who stood fast for marriage equality.
Take a bow, and take pride.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].