Kathleen Cei photo

Rev. John Gage of United Church on the Green

Pssst...Let's not tell the Republicans about this one for a few weeks, OK? They'll just make political hay out of it.

Nah, let's tell everyone. We're just too happy about gay marriage. And besides, won't Kerrigan et al. vs. Commissioners of Public Health be a huge boon for conservative concerns like small businesses? Just when everybody's tightening their belts and cutting back on expenses like elaborate weddings, there's a whole new flood of potential newlyweds to stimulate the economy.

So let the politicians muddle through with their reservations, justifications and exasperations. Gov. Jodi Rell's protestation, for instance, that she'll abide by the State Supreme Court's decision despite her feeling that "it doesn't reflect the majority of the people of Connecticut," seems to presume that income taxes are popular, or that virtually any decision about civil rights (ethnic, disabled, gender-based or otherwise) affects a majority of citizens.

For those of us in the so-called Constitution State who actually believe in a constitution, Friday's Supreme Court decision represents everything that's good about democracy, civil rights, state's rights, the justice system and social justice. (Pity it took so long, but here it is at last.)

It was that sort of satisfaction—that pleased sigh of overwhelming relief—that I heard on Sunday coming from the pulpit of the downtown New Haven church my family attends. Rev. John McIver Gage is the openly gay minister of United Church on the Green: one of the oldest churches in New Haven, the one that helped the Amistad slaves win their freedom nearly 180 years ago and has been that kind of progressive ever since.

Within minutes of the gay marriage decision on Friday, Rev. Gage sent a passionate, overjoyed e-mail to the congregation. He began by quoting from the biblical book of Mark, chapter 10, verse nine—"Therefore, those whom God has joined together, let no one separate"—and continued, "Friends, today marks a historic turning point in our continuing struggle to bring the values of God's reign to birth here on earth and for equal civil rights to all people."

On Sunday, Rev. Gage ditched his scheduled "Everyday Idols" sermon on Exodus chapter 32, substituting a reading from Peter 1:39, about the rejoicing that sustains us through the fiery trials which may come with religious faith and human existence. His sermon was about joy over how, after centuries of exclusion, homosexuals could finally "honest to God, out and out, marry the person of your loving choices." He talked of the "fabulously motley crew...dancing out their joy" Friday afternoon in Hartford at the rally heralding the decision.

Results to the gay marriage decision at other churches, as they say, may vary, but there was a palpable thrill in United's Rev. Gage that week which this ordinarily hyper-articulate Yale Divinity School grad was clearly having trouble putting into words. In a New Haven Advocate article two years ago, when he was installed as United's minister, Rev. Gage spoke of how he'd had to leave the church he grew up in when he came to terms with the fact that it would never accept his homosexuality.

His struggle obviously didn't end just by his finding and leading an accepting, affirming congregation. Now Rev. Gage and other ministers statewide can marry men to men and women to women in a ceremony which, for many people, is right up there with — or higher than — the holiest holidays as the most joyful, happiest time you can ever have in a church. Or, for that matter, in a courtroom.

In a time of doldrums, Connecticut just made things a whole lot more blissful for a whole lot of passionate, patient, caring and committed people. That's some fine constitution.