I literally missed the vote by three minutes this afternoon—I left at 1:20 to get back to work.

But good for us. This was the right thing for Massachusetts, and I believe we owe a huge debt to Governor Patrick, who had the courage to actively and unambiguously defend the right of all people to marry in Massachusetts.

Send the governor a note of thanks.

And the thing to remember about the opposition's line, "Let the People Vote," is that (a) "the people" in question were less than .03% of Massachusetts' population—170,000 willing to go on record as committed homophobes out of 6,350,000 citizens in all, and (b) We, The People (i.e., the remaining 99.97%) voted out a number of legislators who bet their careers on anti-gay sentiment in the last election.

The Globe was right that to advance the agenda of this .03%—an agenda that has been advanced by The Right on the national stage to the detriment of the nation—would result only in an ugly ballot fight and serve only the cause of hate. It's sham politics that takes the focus off of issues like economic justice and Iraq.

So, hooray for Massachusetts for doing us Proud today.