Maureen Walsh could have spent four minutes up there talking about believing in the goodness and love in herself. Instead, she spent it talking about the goodness and love in everyone, and at the core of the human experience. I'm sending her a check once I have money in the bank.
To me, it's probably one of the most influential speeches ever given on gay marriage by a legislator (and I do mean that) because of it's simplicity. Those who oppose gay marriage could at a time before there
was gay marriage use any appeal to oppose it. As more gay marriages take place and there are no effects on anyone except a positive effect on gays who get married opposition is much more difficult.
Eventually you are left with people who oppose it out of nothing but spite. To them gay marriage is about everything but gays; it's about 'religion' and 'freedom' and the 'family' and 'tradition' and 'don't know know what gays actually
do?'
Mrs Walsh essentially speared that argument very simply. As every married person will know marriage isn't all about sex, it's about much more than that. If you deny the 'much more than that' because of prudish views on sex then you actually demean what a marriage is about. To then deny the benefits of marriage to a group of people for reasons completely unrelated to those benefits is nothing more than spite.
