In 1997, when Ellen made her famous declaration, it took place in an America where the Defense of Marriage Act had just passed months earlier, and civil unions were not yet legal in any state - but also remember, just thirty years before that, the Supreme Court was deciding that the ban against interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Up until then, heterosexual people of different races couldn’t marry who they wanted to marry, either. So when Black people today tell me that they don’t believe in gay marriage…the first thing that I say is, “Please don’t let anybody try to get you to vote against your own best interests by feeding you messages of hate.”
