"I felt thick inside with happiness." Here's an immensely touching article about children whose gay parents obtained marriage licenses. Some kid quotes to make you cry:

"It was so cool ... I always accepted that `Yeah, they're my moms,' but they were actually getting married. I felt thick inside with happiness. Just thick."

"Before it was, `Oh, your parents are just partners,' ... Now, they're spouses. So it's a bigger way of thinking about them."

"It is something I always wanted. I've always been around people saying, `Oh, my parents anniversary is this week.' It's always been the sight of two parents, married, with rings. And knowing I'd probably never experience it ever."

"I don't think they can take it away ... Maybe they can go into the Hall of Marriages and rip up the papers. But emotionally, they can never take away the feeling that my parents are married."

At first, I thought, how can anyone read this and be opposed to gay marriage? How can anyone not want these children to be happy? A bit later, I realized that a hardcore opponent of gay marriage would have to say that the parents themselves had wronged these children by getting them involved in the concept that their parents were married before the legality of gay marriage had been established. They set their children up for a fall, like, say, a parent who told a child that someone he loved was getting out of prison, even though the parole board hadn't made a decision yet. Or worse, one could say that gay marriage proponents were using their own children to further a political agenda, by letting the kids think there could be a marriage and exposing the kids to reporters who would print charming, innocent words that make newspaper readers cry and cave in to that political agenda. But I think non-hardcore types — AKA most Americans — are going to be influenced by the realities of families that already exist and the interests of the children who are already living in them.