 I'm here in downtown Northampton in front of the Unitarian Society building, and I picked this spot to tell this story because of the incredible role that Unitarians and over a thousand clergy in Massachusetts played in the battle to keep discrimination out of the Massachusetts Constitution. In 2006, 10 couples, same-sex couples, went to their city and town halls across the commonwealth and asked for a license so that they could marry, and each of the clerks said that they were unable to issue them a license under the Massachusetts laws. They took that issue to the Massachusetts State Supreme Judicial Court, and by a vote of five to four, the justices voted that under the Massachusetts Constitution, same-sex couples had the right to marry the same as heterosexual couples, that under the Constitution, equal opportunity meant gender could play no role in the decision as to whether or not people could secure a marriage license. It started a three-and-a-half year battle with those forces that sought to insert into the Massachusetts Constitution language that would define marriages between only one man and one woman. That three-and-a-half year battle was a battle that many of us saw as necessary to keep discrimination out of the Massachusetts Constitution. After three-and-a-half years of debate and meetings of the Constitutional Convention, we finally secured enough votes to defeat that proposed amendment. The beginnings of that battle were in those 10 city and town halls with those 10 couples and the act of the Supreme Court, but once the court made the decision, they said the legislature had 90 days in which to do whatever changes in the law were necessary in order to secure the rights of these couples. It turned out that the governor, the speaker, and the senate president were all opposed to the idea of same-sex marriage and all were in favor of putting some kind of discriminatory language into the Massachusetts Constitution. From a group of about eight members of the legislature organizing for these conventions, we grew from 8 to 50 and then 60 and 70 and 80 and finally on the final vote three-and-a-half years after the convention began, 158 members of the 200-member state legislature voted against writing this language into the Constitution, thereby supporting the rights of same-sex couples. The Unitarian Church was the space that we used as organizers in Boston to meet, to plan our strategies, to educate members in the legislature about the importance of this civil right and so the Unitarian Church played a very significant role in a very quiet way in helping us to succeed at our constitutional convention. Even as we were organizing and convincing our colleagues one at a time to view this not as a religious issue but as a civil issue and that we as elected officials had a responsibility to write civil law, not to write religious law or not to advance religious law. We can carry our beliefs and our faith into the debate but ultimately our responsibility and decisions as elected officials was in this instance to write civil law and in this country in order to be married you have to have a license from the government to get married and then you can choose to be married in a religious ceremony or in a civil ceremony or both. In fact you know many of the clergy who conduct marriages are the folks who end up signing the legal papers indicating that they conducted the marriage ceremony and this is perfectly legitimate under our laws but it is at its core a civil exercise in our society not a religious exercise. That a thousand priests and rabbis and ministers and pastors chose to join the fight and to speak out publicly in support of diversity and respecting the uniqueness of each individual as a person created in the image of God as is believed in most religions was a great strength to the people who were fighting this battle. And so standing in front of the Unitarian society gives honor and homage to the religious leaders and to the specific and special role that the Unitarians played but also doing so here in Northampton in a place that has among the largest number of same sex married couples in the Commonwealth on a per capita basis and anywhere in the country on a per capita basis also signifies and communicates how wonderful and unique this place is in which we live that respects and honors the diversity of its people and seeks to create a welcoming place where all people of good will can live and work and play and participate in life together. And so one of the proudest moments I think for all 158 members of the legislature who voted to keep discrimination out of the Constitution was that we knew that we had gone from a core of about eight members to 158 members who were convinced by their constituents and by their own consciences and by their own commitment to their duty to ensure that they upheld their responsibility to write civil law in conformity with the Constitution and protect equal opportunity for every citizen. And that is in the nature and the values of the place in which we live. And I think we can take great pride that the communities of Hampshire and Franklin County this valley provide a welcoming environment so that people from all walks of life all faiths all faiths who have many different ways of living can live together peacefully and enjoy one another's company.