Few things make me happier than a wedding.

I love watching people who love each other stand up and promise their love, promise their fidelity, promise that they’ll keep showing up no matter how tough things get.

I simply love love. I love its purity, its strength, its depth. I love romantic love and platonic love and parental love. Because love is where it’s at.

Love conquers all. Love wins.

I have chills right now about the  Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality is a celebration of that love.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s landmark 5-4 ruling: “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were.

“Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

As a married straight woman, I’ve never understood why only some of us could have our loves formally recognized but others were told they couldn’t. That their unions weren’t real. That their partnerships didn’t count.

I can’t imagine anything that flies more in the face of love than exclusion.

Love is a phenomenon that occurs between souls, not exclusively between this gender and that one. Love is not a woman/man thing. Love is a people thing. It’s a soul thing. It’s a love thing.

Most importantly, though, it’s an equality thing.

When all Americans are truly treated as equal, we are more free.”

President Obama said the decision “reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to equal protection under the law.”

“When all Americans are truly treated as equal, we are more free,” he said. “Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we have made our union a little more perfect.”

That’s why I’m crying happy tears right now. I’m throwing emotional fistfuls of rice all over. I’m doing a celebratory duck dance for every couple in the United States that has the desire to commit to a loving relationship.

Stand proud, SCOTUS. Stand proud, brothers and sisters in love. I am giving a standing ovation to you both.

Because love wins.

Relephant: 

Gay Marriage: Why Legal Isn’t Enough. 

Barack Obama: “Shame On You,” When Interrupted During LGBT Speech.

Author: Becky Vollmer

Editor: Renée Picard 

Photo: esparta at Flickr