It was a typical morning; my eyes were half-open, my brain was part-working, and my body was long-awake. My phone rested snugly in my hands as I held onto it like I should have been holding onto my sleep. I was scrolling through the screen continously for minutes, eating up my Instagram feed for breakfast when I suddenly got a free side of sweet joy: my eyes swept across an image with rainbow stripes, captioned with the hashtag #LoveWins! At first, in my sleepily oblivious mind, I didn't get it. Then, a second later, it fully registered: every state in the United States of America was finally, rightfully gifted marriage equality!

Victory is sweet, and even for someone like me, having no relation to the LGBTQ community, it feels like the US really won. There are still haters, of course; anyone who follows the White House account on Instagram can read through the comments on the marriage equality post and see the horrendous comments about the movement being "disgusting." Their main points are that it is against the Bible for gay people to be gay because Adam and Eve were created and that people who are anything but heterosexual shouldn't have access to marriage rights because only a man and woman can populate. I personally do not understand why these two reasons are even allowed to regulate what should be legal. If anything, these aren't reasons against equality; they're reasons for it. We populate quite quickly; to help maintain a stable population, the inability to reproduce is only helpful. People say that because Adam and Eve were created to populate the earth, marriage can only be between a man and a woman. However, just because two women or two men get married, doesn't mean there isn't a way for them to have biological children. And, if a gay couple doesn't want to have biological children, that is their choice. The same goes for a straight couple that doesn't want children. We don't need everybody to populate right now. Instead of worrying about homosexuals being unable to have babies, why not worry about babies who are unable to be cared for by heterosexual people all around the world? And if everyone's bashing gay people for not reproducing, why don't we start bashing straight women who can't have children, or straight couples who chose not to reproduce? People are being ridiculous these days. However, there are more people being realistic and supportive, which is why we have made marriage equal for all. Just like civil rights movements of the past, this one has worked hard for something and achieved its goals. I'm proud of my country, and for every individual who has gained his or her deserved rights, I am overly happy.