Kish: Fight For Your Rights

Today's One Life to Live featured some truly awesome scenes in the gay marriage storyline. We picked up where we'd left off, Dorian about to sign what turned out to be her and Amelia's marriage certificate in front of the crowd, with the state Attorney General interrupting to announce that he was 'shutting her down' by order of the Governor.

The AG said that the Governor had understood the 'gesture' of the symbolic ceremony, but gay marriage was against the law. "Not in Llanview. Not anymore," Dorian said, to cheers from the crowd. Well, cheers from most of the crowd. Three drunken louts yelled for the rest of the crowd to let the Attorney General talk, one of them sneering that "the whole town's gone gay!" (Quick, someone tell Rex and Brody!)

The crowd, including two of the shows leading teen characters, Starr and Langston, began chanting "Gay, straight, black, white, Marriage is a civil right" in response.

The AG told Dorian that if she signed the license she'd be going to jail. Dorian pointed out that the state constitution of Pennsylvania doesn't actually say that marriage is between a man and a woman, and the Attorney General said that it was implied. Not according to her lawyers, Dorian retorted, adding that she'd see him in court.

Amelia asked Dorian in an aside if she was sure she knew what she was doing. Dorian: "I had you sign a prenup, didn't I?" I love it! Pure Dorian.

Dorian and Amelia proceeded to sign their marriage license and Dorian, as Mayor, gave it the official stamp making it the first legal same sex marriage in Llanview. In response, the Attorney General ordered Fish, who was working crowd control, to arrest the new Mayor. When Fish asked what would happen if he didn't, the AG told him he'd have his badge.

AG: Officer, you have your orders. Place the Mayor under arrest.

Fish: No, sir.

AG: What?

Fish: I can't obey your order.

AG: She's breaking the law.

Fish: Yeah, well, some laws need to be broken.

AG: That's not your call, officer.

Fish: God, with every single civil rights movement in this country, somebody, somewhere had to break an unjust law to make things right. And that's exactly what Mayor Lord is doing. So that couples like her and her partner, and me and my boyfriend, can have the same rights as every other couple out there. We want to get married someday! Well, maybe. You know, if we ever have a date first.

At that point, Fish took off his badge and started to hand it to the Attorney General, which was a huge decision since being a cop means everything to Oliver. It really shows how far he's come, since a few months ago he was terrified of coming out and losing his job, and now he's willing to sacrifice it in the fight for civil rights.

Dorian stopped him, however, and told him to keep his badge and to arrest her. With the press lapping up every second of the show (and Markko catching it all on film for his documentary) Dorian announced that she'd go to jail proudly for the cause.

What I love about this is that Dorian's motivations are purely self serving,and really what could be more realistic? Most politicians don't make stands for causes just because it's the right thing to do.

Fish escorted Dorian all the way to her cell, where he thanked her for what she was doing for the community. I love that Fish, after so many years of feeling so alone, is already feeling that he's a part of a community.

Back in Angel Square, most of the rest of the crowd had dispersed but Nick and Amelia were still there. Nick asked his friend if the whole thing they'd just witnessed had been a publicity stunt, seeming almost offended by the idea that it might have been. That is kind of odd, since he and Amelia were in on the whole marriage thing from the very beginning of Dorian's campaign and their objective was to get publicity for the cause. But, I won't quibble.

Amelia reminded Nick that, while they certainly wanted publicity, Dorian had just gone to jail for them. Before their conversation could continue any further, they were surrounded menacingly by the three drunken louts from earlier, who referred to them as "Mary and her little lesbo." Uh, oh.

Great scenes today, though. I'm so proud of this show for what it's doing with this storyline. No other show that I'm aware of, not even in prime time, has tackled the gay marriage issue in such a head on way. It's truly amazing.