Little old ladies, young dads with their twin daughters in snugglies, punkie 20-somethings with nose rings, elegant white haired men in tuxedos, frumpy people, hip 30-somethings, men with receding hairlines and middle-aged paunch, dotcommers and construction workers, people in work clothes, people in tourist clothes, women in gowns, women in suits, interracial couples, couples with parents listening on cell phones...they are all there.

The electricity emanating from San Francisco is palpable, even here in Alabama, and the images of joyful people lined up around the block to wait all day are enough to make even bigots cry. Love and justice have been unleashed and they are sweeping the city and the nation and they can't be stopped now. It is nothing short of a Pentecost. Maybe it can be slowed or halted in the short run, but thousands of couples with legal marriage certificates can't all be put down. They will go back to their workplaces and cities and states and demand their rights as married couples. Some will have the courage to press the issue. Some will win. Eventually, state by state, justice will reign. When the National Guard forces the governor of Alabama to step aside from the courthouse door, the last battle will have been won.

Then, and only then, will MY marriage (which happens to be the privileged "one man, one woman" kind) be sanctified through the elimination of the exclusionary and discriminatory practices that mar the institution. And when my as yet unconceived but hoped for child is doing a high school civics project s/he will ask, "Do you remember back when gay couples weren't allowed to get married? WHY?? It makes no sense! Didn't people know that it was wrong to try to stop people from loving each other?" And I will want to critique the church, or explain the connections between patriarchy and heterosexism, or discuss the history of oppression supported by the politicians of the time…but in that moment I will lean down to kiss that appalled teenage face and say, "I am so glad that YOU know."

Sheri Shuler is a professor of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. She and her husband live in Tuscaloosa.

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