With respect, sir, you say that you "love" gays and lesbians, but if trivializing our relationships as mere friendships and opposing our basic rights is how you define the word "love," you can keep it.

I want the Supreme Court to rule that Ron and I have the constitutional -- that is, fundamental -- right to marriage and to be able to enjoy the same privileges and benefits of marriage that my siblings and friends enjoy.

Liberty and equality are not the same, and while the Supreme Court could reach for either legal principle in a ruling declaring Prop 8 unconstitutional, the principle that it ends up choosing could matter a great deal.

I hurt each and every day because the man I loved died. But I hurt more knowing that he and I were denied basic human rights that should be guaranteed to couples like us by the state. Marriage is about more than the rings, the dancing and the cake.

I smell freedom across the I-5 bridge to Washington, and I want it. I deserve it. I am thrilled for my brothers and sisters in our neighboring state, but being able to see equality now just over the river has added insult to injury.

Archbishop John Nienstedt, the same bishop who turned the Catholic Mass and that church's holiest sacrament into a weapon with which to bludgeon LGBT people, does not want dissent within the clerical ranks when it comes to same-sex marriage.