Obama takes a stand.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - President Barack Obama - Column

You've got to hand it to President Obama: His declaration of marriage equality was historic and gutsy. He didn't just issue a statement. He made a persuasive, personal case, mentioning friends and neighbors, as well as members of the Armed Services.

But for me, it was his acknowledgment of the equal rights of the parents of his daughters' friends and the equal rights of his staff members that struck the truest note. When you really know someone, and admire someone, and recognize someone as a thoroughly moral individual, and then see that person denied a basic right, you cannot, ultimately, help but speak up if you are a decent human being, much less a leader.

After I heard the news about Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage, I went over to a wall in my office where, for the last six years hangs a wedding invitation. It's from Richard Taylor and Ray Vahey. It requested the honor of my presence "at their wedding ceremony and celebration of fifty years of love." The wedding was scheduled for September 16, 2006, and there was to be a fundraiser reception afterward as a benefit for Fair Wisconsin, the LGBT group that was fighting an anti-same-sex-marriage constitutional amendment.

I got the invitation because The Progressive mentioned the couple in a story called "No Wedding Bells," by Judith Davidoff. "They've seen each other through major life events, including serious illnesses for them both," she wrote. "But despite their fifty-year commitment, they still don't have access to the routine benefits accorded married couples." For instance, said Vahey, "If one of us dies, the survivor has no right to the other's Social Security payments." Nor would Vahey have a claim on Taylor's veteran's benefits. Taylor had served on a naval tanker during World War II.

I never made it to Vahey and Taylor's wedding because Taylor grew...