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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Persistence pays in fight for marriage equality - Randi Weingarten - POLITICO.com

Persistence pays in fight for marriage equality - Randi Weingarten - POLITICO.com:

Persistence pays in fight for marriage equality

Randi Weingarten (left) and Edie Windsor are shown in this composite image. | AP Photos
Randi Weingarten writes that she is inspired by Edie Windsor’s belief in the future | AP Photos
The following essay is part of a series in which dozens of women will reveal what women they most admire. The series is part of “Women Rule,” a unique effort this fall by POLITICO, Google and The Tory Burch Foundation exploring how women are leading change in politics, policy and their communities. See more essays here.
Growing up gay in the 1970s, the only boy-meets-boy or girl-meets-girl love stories I recall were those whispered about, mostly in derogatory terms. Gay men and lesbians were in our lives, but there was nothing “mainstream” about it — far from it. And marriage equality was not something that most of us could even contemplate.

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It took a strong but unassuming woman who came of age decades before me, in an era of even less acceptance of gays and lesbians, to grasp the brass ring of marriage equality. That woman, of course, is Edith Windsor.
When Edie and Thea Spyer got engaged in the late 1960s, Edie couldn’t wear an engagement ring because of the questions it would raise at IBM, where she worked — questions she knew she couldn’t answer honestly about their “love that couldn’t


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/persistence-pays-in-fight-for-marriage-equality-99411.html#ixzz2jsGsEgoV