Per Andrew Sullivan: activist Amy Balliet.

“In marriage, God and family keep us accountable. But government is supposed to provide the rights to help us stay accountable. If we are outside of Washington state, for example, and one of us goes into the hospital, the absence of those rights makes it impossible to be able to take care of each other and to live up to the commitments we have made to one another,” she says.

Respek.

Already with the November-of-love children!

Update: More from Broadsheet …

Some said it early; now others are saying it often: On Election Night, ecstatic voters yelled, “Yes, we can! Yes! Yes! YES!” 

Sept. 11 gave us the desperate grope for end-of-days closeness dubbed “terror sex.” Nov. 4, reportedly, has given us hope sex: the ecstatic urge to, you know, like our man in Grant Park, connect with regular people. The drive to make love, not a $6 billion war. The panting anticipation of an administration that, with the possible exception of Lynne Cheney, is not completely weird about sex. And thus — as Jezebel suggests today — given our now-possible vision of a baby-worthy world, perhaps even a tossing of condoms to the wind (especially now that we may no longer need to hoard them). Abstinence, schmabstinence, baby!

(more…)

Here are Team BG’s picks for Obama’s cabinet. There’s still room for shuffling. Your suggestions?

Keith Olbermann offers one of the most emphatic, stirring, and beautiful smackdowns BG has yet heard of California’s Prop. 8 and the people who love it.

Excerpt:

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it.

Click here for full video and transcript.

Update: Gay couples marrying in Connecticut marrying as we speak. 

You finish each other’s sentences. You each know how the other likes their coffee. You share inside jokes about your boss’s 70s wardrobe.

3 of 7 tell-tale signs that you have a work spouse.

Do you? (And if so/applicable, how does your home spouse feel about it?)

The results are in: No, they can’t.

Alternet: Single women helped Obama win.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that last night, for millions of euphoric liberals, moderates, and sane Republicans, “Not tonight, honey, I have to blog,” became “YES WE CAN! YES! YES! YES!”

Take me, for example. As I watched Obama’s acceptance speech, heart — and loins — swelled alike. My loving man gave my hand a squeeze, and I was filled with a wondrous, deep and primal desire to embrace him and celebrate life. And even — now that we have a prayer of creating for them a worthy world — to make life, to make babies!

I know I’m not alone: Twitterer after Twitterer was whooping in the same lusty way. And whether or not there’s a resulting O-baby-boom in July, we can say this with some certainty: Inspired, united, ignited, we have officially replaced the terror sex of 2001 — that end-of-days groping for closeness — with hope sex, celebrating the true, transporting possibility of coming together as one.

Today is a day when cliches ring true — when it’s time to regale not superheroes, but “ordinary” ones, who wield the strongest superpower of all: hope.

President-elect Barack Obama, November 4, 2008:

“This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons: because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America, the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves: if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes we can.”

…and go vote!

Yes, this is a Breakup Girl issue.  Voting is participating, reminding us that we are part of — and have a stake in — something larger than ourselves. This can be a comfort if we are single and/or smarting, as well as a reminder that who we are and what we consider important has an impact on others: whether those in our Palm Pilots, or those in power.

Plus, you can always meet someone while you’re waiting in line.

Bonus! If you’ve already voted, here’s your toy surprise: a BG-relevant — and patriotic — video from super-FOBG Rob Paravonian…