Free Republic

Phyllis Lyon, left, 79, and Del Martin, 82, right, both of San Francisco and a couple for 51 years, are escorted through City Hall after they were married in a civil ceremony in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004. In a political and legal challenge to California law, city authorities officiated at the marriage of the lesbian couple, then announced they would issue more same-sex marriage licenses.

<p>THOSE African-American ministers in Massachusetts who deny any link between the black civil rights movement and the movement toward same-sex marriage are running back into a dank closet of yesteryear. These ministers who want to stuff today's gay and lesbian couples into separate and unequal compartments of commitment have forgotten how the civil rights movement forced Bayard Rustin, one of the movement's greatest theorists, to make himself invisible because he was gay.</p>