It’s an amazing feeling when you suddenly realize you are in the midst of a major social change.

    Approximately two years ago, as I opened a batch of engagement and wedding announcement submissions for the Post, it took me a second to figure out what I was looking at.

    “Oh … OH!”

    It was the first gay marriage announcement I’d ever received — we’d ever received in the 30-plus years of the Post.

    I announced to my then-editor, Don Flood, what I had just opened. The two women had married in Vermont in a legal civil union ceremony and one of the women was a local graduate whose parents still lived in the area.

    Almost no discussion was needed; we were running the announcement.

    To me, I didn’t see any other option. They were married in Vermont, where same-sex unions are legal, and even though the union wouldn’t be recognized in Delaware, it is legal where they live.

    “What are people going to say?” I thought. In this business, people feel no restraint in telling you what they think, and this was out of the norm for our paper (again, we’d never received a same-sex announcement before). Surely there would be some backlash or praise based on what side of the issue readers sat. 

    Surprisingly, only a handful of calls came in, some in support of us running the announcement and some disgusted that we did.

    Last week, the state Senate defeated a bill that would have amended the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, as it lacked the majority vote needed for a constitutional amendment to pass the Senate.

    The argument for the amendment: “If we allow gay marriage, then why not for polygamists? Or, as you could certainly stretch it to say, why not pedophiles,” said Sen. Robert L. Venables, the Laurel Democrat who introduced the bill.

    What exactly does gay marriage have to do with pedophiles? That’s a bit more than a stretch. The two aren’t even comparable.

    Aren’t we, as a society, past the point where homosexuals are seen as nothing more than perverts, that they are real people with real feelings and real relationships, even if it is with a person of the same sex?

    I guess all of us aren’t.

    I’ve heard the argument a million times that permitting gay marriage would pervert the institution of marriage. Half of all heterosexual marriages today end in divorce for a variety of reasons — infidelity, deceit, incompatibility, different value systems, etc. — and vows like “for better, for worse” are easily forgotten.

    Some people just decide they simply don’t want to be married anymore.

    That is the true perversion of marriage, not two people wanting to be together because they love each other, regardless of their sexual orientation.

    And to liken them to criminals is criminal itself.

Email Maureen Raitz at maureen.raitz@doverpost.com.