As luck would have it, I watched this vote live last Friday night. What a wonderful moment, in the face of so much religious intolerance and bigotry, for so many people who want to love one another to be able to legally do so. How beautiful, how right, how nice and kind and well meaning.
I confess that my eyes welled up when victory was announced and when the cheering from the statehouse gallery began tears burst down my cheeks. It is a weakness many liberals share, control of our emotions when something unexpected, good and rare happens here in OUR country.
I am not sure what, if anything causes Republicans to well up. I suppose waving BABY KILLER signs at pregnant women at abortion clinics? Or being allowed to shoot a gun on full automatic? Or shooting animals from airplanes? Or a vote to deny others the same rights they enjoy. Or reading some awful crime article to find it was a Black guy who did it, or even better, a homosexual Mexican illegal alien – that could really get the gusher going I suspect. Oh and singing the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games.
I also confess that quite often my tears run freely at the movies when someone on screen DOES THE RIGHT THING. It’s dark in there so no one knows if you keep your hands away from your eyes for a while. And keep the 3d glasses on as you walk out.
It’s things like the parade at the end of Star Wars or in the heat of argument little Frodo saying, "I will take the ring to Mt Doom" that gets me gushing.
I suppose it is the same for conservatives watching the movie DO THE RIGHT THING when the Danny Aiello character refuses to put ONE picture of ONE black guy up on the wall full of white Italians in his pizza place whose customers are all black. No NWORD is going to force ME to do something I do not want to do! I imagine both conservatives who actually saw that Spike Lee movie were in tears celebrating DOING THE WRONG THING.
BTW, for all you Republicans who never saw the movie, no one did the right thing and it all burned down for it.