When the District legalized same-sex marriage five years ago, just five states allowed gay unions. Today, same-sex couples can marry in 37 states and the District. And in June, the Supreme Court will likely decide whether any state can continue to restrict marriage to only between a man and a woman.
What is sometimes lost in the sweeping legal changes are the thousands of personal stories the actual marriages, the individual lives that have been forever altered.
We caught up with three couples among the hundreds who wed in the District after marriage became legal on March 9, 2010. As their fifth anniversaries approach, they describe what their married lives have been like the struggles and pleasures, the sublime highs and hum-drum everyday-ness. And they exult in the sense of being part of the community of married couples from which they were once legally excluded.