This week, same-sex marriage faces its biggest test yet — it's being debated in the U.S. Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the issue was the constitutionality of California's voter-approved Proposition 8, which restricted marriage to heterosexual couples. Today, the issue is DOMA, the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
The momentousness of the occasion has seen groups both for and against same-sex marriage hold rallies across the country, and on a very chilly Tuesday night in Tampa, an estimated 200 people gathered at the steps of the federal building on Florida Avenue just north of downtown to call for marriage equality — now.
"My two moms mean the world to each other," said 13-year-old Tyler Meagley, the first public speaker of the evening. "And I mean the world to them. What do we have to gain from shunning people just because of who they love? How does this benefit us? So they're different? Whoop-de-doo, big deal. Gay people aren't some poison. Gay people are just people with a different form of love. It can't be helped."
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.