A toast to same-sex couples in Washington

>>> supreme court announced it will take the first serious look at marriage equality , agreeing to review two lower court ruling that is struck down the federal defense marriage act both of which barred same-sex couple from marrying. the announcement comes days after they certified the results of the voter referendum. hundreds of washington couples rushed on thursday morning to apply for marriage licenses that come with a required three-day waiting period for everyone under state law . as you watch this now, same-sex couples across the state will be slipping on wedding dresses and pinning boutonnieres to their suits. one of those couples will be dan savage , founder of the it gets better and savage love -- on thursday and when this airs dan will be back in washington just hours from walking down the aisle, through the magic of tv travel, i have dan with me here in new york. dan , thank you so much for being here. congratulations on getting future married.

>> thank you. it's my pleasure.

>> i have to start with your reaction to the supreme court granting this case. all eyes have been on this. there's a lot of tension and excitement in equal measure among equality activists.

>> yeah. i'm going to date myself saying are we going to get it. if we get evans, a '96 report, i remember that day when the decision came down. i want to reassure people that that decision and how big it was laid the ground work for lawrence. i believe we are going to win this in the end. i hope the end comes next june with the supreme court decision upholding marriage equality , the radical idea that gays and lesbians are able to get laws like everybody else . if we lose and we could lose, we haven't lost. this battle isn't over until we win. it's what we saw in maine. we lost at the ballot box . the marriage law was signed by the governor and overturned by the voters. the marriage fight is over when we say it's over and over when we win. if we lose at the supreme court , there's other cases because we are going to keep living, existing, coming out, marrying and suing until we get justice.

>> lawrence is the case that struck down the sodomy law in texas as unconstitutional.

>> and 13 other states. it didn't apply to gay couples alone. it applies to heterosexuals. any sex act that isn't procreatively appropriate. we are all sod mites now.

>> so, here we have a bottle of champagne. the reason is i believe, you brought this bottle of champaign.

>> i did. this is a sell bra tour bottle.

>> the hotel heard i was getting married and they thought i was here for the honeymoon so that was in our room. i'm here alone, so i thought i would bring it and share it with you.

>> this is a rare opportunity to consume champaign on set which i generally don't do from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m . you are going to be getting married. you are already married, right?

>> we married in canada on our tenth anniversary. we are getting remarried, renewing our vows. they ask if you are married to anyone else , not if you are married before. we fought hard to get this law passed and we wanted to be part of this day. on our first wedding, we didn't have guests or friends there. we snuck off to canada and eloped and went to our tenth anniversary party wauz telling anyone they were at a wedding reception . we are doing it a bit more, more publicly this time and inviting family.

>> you have written about this quite a bit. the thinking about your conception of what marriage is and why it's important to you from a personal level, not here.

>> cheers, by the way and to all the other couples.

>> to all those in washington state who are marrying, congratulations.

>>> personally and politically, what was the thinking process about wanting to do it?

>> well, years ago, when we first started contemplating marriage. i came out in 1981 , which was a difficult time coming out, a teenager, a catholic and the reagan administration . it was hard. telling your parents you are gay, your catholic parents you are gay meant you will never marry, never have children and never be a marine. i married we have a child we adopted at birth today. he's almost 15. now we can be marines, not that we want to, to relief of the u.s. and united states marine corps . for a lot of gays and lesbians at my age and older, marriage was the trap that you could fall into before you came out. if you didn't come out by the time you were 18 or 20, you would get married and you could never come out without, you know -- for a lot of older gays and lesbians , myself, included, marriage wasn't thought about. then you had to think about it. i know straight people who have reservations and think about what it means. so, we didn't rush in. we debated. terry said to my mother, which was a mistake, when she was saying we should get married, he didn't want to act like straight people .

>> she you can't act more straight than that.

>> we adopted. we were bringing a kid up together. we eventually came around to, i think, not just gays and lesbians to the importance of marriage. one of the most important rights, it's hugely important a lot of lez beyans and gays. when you marry, you declare your next of kin. you get to choose. empowering to say this person is my next of kin, not my parents, siblings or distant cousins who may be alive. this person that i have chosen makes medical decisions for me, is the first person the doctors turn to in a crisis, is my most immediate family member. to have that right as a gay person is important.

>> i want to talk about the remarkable shift in opinion that's brought us to this. why it's happened and where