We Asked It: Why Are You Celebrating Today at Stonewall?

"I was watching the news all this morning, counting down to when the decision would come out. When it did I cried for an hour, and then I came here. It's such a huge day."

Jay: "My wife Carrie and I were introduced by gay friends of ours in a gay bar in Chicago. I played on a gay softball team, and Carrie's friends were on the opposing team. We're just visiting New York, and were actually down at Ground Zero when the news broke, so we decided to come here. It's a good lesson for our daughter, because we were explaining to her at Ground Zero that there are just some bad people in the world—but today's victory for gay marriage also teaches her that love is always stronger than hate."

Sigmund: Well, it makes me feel even worse that I'm currently single, haha. But it's meaningful that now I can get married, even though I don't plan on doing it anytime soon. Tim: Now I can tell my parents that I'm going to get married and have kids. It feels validating. But even though it's a big step on a social level, it's still a struggle for everyone personally. For instance, my sister is a lesbian, and she has a 10-year-old daughter from a previous marriage who seems to be ashamed that her mother is gay.

It's great news for me because I've been planning to get married to my girlfriend who is back in California. She was going to come here to New York so we could get married, but now I can go back to California and we can get married there.

We've been married in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. We've been together 14 years. It's a very meaningful day for me because my grandmother was a lesbian and was with her partner, unmarried, for 60 years—and was in the closet the whole time. I wasn't sure what was going to happen because after yesterday's Voting Rights Act ruling, it seemed like the Court had a conservative influence. So today was good news, but after yesterday, it's bittersweet.

Johnnie: I've lived 40 years in the Village and it's changed tremendously over time. Now it's the most expensive zip code in Manhattan! It also used to be even more gay back then than it is now. In the '70s ,this place used to flooded with gay men, but everything changed in the 80's when so many in our community started dying. We're actually not going to Stonewall, we're just passing through, but it's good to hear the news.

Tree: I was here during the Stonewall riots, when this nail salon was still part of the bar. The nail salon actually used to BE the bar, and where the bar is now was the dancefloor. Now I've been bartending at the Inn for 47 years. The news didn't surprise me but I'm glad it happened. Michael: I'm an activist and political junkie. I've been watching the SCOTUS blog for the past three days, and when the news broke today I screamed in my office. Everyone turned around looking worried, but I told them, "It's okay, it's good news!"