My wife and I went to a memorable wedding this summer that joined two extraordinary young people together in what we know will be a life of good friends and great adventures. On the eve of the wedding we all gathered for songs and stories and laughter in a magnificent old barn.

The setting reminded me that everything we experience and every place we’re in has both an untold history and a future to be written. The barn’s story revealed itself in the hand-hewn beams and wooden pegs that gave it strength and form.

It was easy to imagine the handprints and the laughter of the neighbors who gathered to lift this structure into the sky.

The future was evident in the crowded room of hopeful young musicians and friends supporting the new couple. We listened and sang, drummed and danced, told stories and read poems.

The next day, as the wedding ceremony gave way to festivities, the young couple began the first dance of newlyweds, surrounded by their smiling and sometimes misty community, their happiness filling the spacious barn.

These were two young women in love, and it was perfect.

Except for one thing.

Despite all of their obvious love and commitment, and the support and celebration of 170 of their family and friends, under Maine law today they are nothing more than strangers.

Mainers have a chance to change that in four weeks, and this couple’s story is one reason why we must.

There is a widespread common wisdom in Maine that has served us well for centuries.

It cuts across where you live, your income or whether you’re a conservative or a liberal.

We believe that as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, you ought to be able to do what you want. We like to say “live and let live.” Now we’re being asked if that notion should apply to everyone or just to some.

Having grown up in central Maine in a blue collar Catholic family, I know that gay marriage is a hard issue for many people.

It is another challenge to rethink what we were taught about people who aren’t like us, whether they are gays, blacks, Jews, Franco-Americans or even what are called sinners.

Some people are still stuck in that place, in the past.

More often than not, they are people you knew in high school or college who simply stopped growing at some point.

In a complex world, they are comforted by having all the simple answers they’ll ever need, in convenient black and white.

Fortunately, the tide of human progress doesn’t forever stop to wait for them. Each generation struggles with new challenges as it tries to leave a better world to the next. The oldest people among us today saw pioneering women win the right to vote and open the door for other women to become world and national leaders.

They saw the courage of people like Jackie Robinson in baseball and Nat King Cole on television clear the way for Martin Luther King’s marches against segregation and the election of President Obama.

Just as with the barn, we are always building upon the work that came before us. No individual or group succeeds by themselves and no generation starts from scratch.

And while progress is often too slow, it is steady and eventually leads to breakthroughs.

Gay equality is the civil rights movement of today. After decades of small victories and many painful setbacks, it is now at the threshold of its own big leap forward. Public attitudes toward gay people and same-sex marriages are shifting more rapidly than anyone imagined a decade ago.

That change is being driven by young people who have grown up with more tolerance than their parents and grandparents and by a popular culture that is exposing all of us to the diversity of America in ways that past generations never had.

The immensely popular television show Modern Family, for example, is giving millions of Americans an opportunity to enter into the home of a devoted gay couple as they struggle to raise a small child.

While it is both funny and endearing, it is also building understanding and tolerance for the millions of viewers who tune in each week.

Maine has a historic opportunity in four weeks to become the first state in the nation where voters ended marriage discrimination.

Just as that barn was built by many, this is our time to raise something up with our hands and hearts into the sky and pass it onto future generations.

Alan Caron is the President of Envision Maine, a nonpartisan organization working to promote Maine’s next economy. A lifelong Mainer, a pro-growth Democrat, an author of Reinventing Maine Government and a supporter of Angus King, he can be reached at alancaroninmaine@gmail.com.

 

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