The story quoted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) claiming that the effort to raise wages for the poorest of his constituents represents a "broader and deeper" divide than the recent successful fight to legalize same-sex matrimony in the Empire State. Though the piece quickly dissolved into the ether, it should have received more attention because it is an important Rosetta Stone -- one that translates this era's inscrutable political rhetoric into a clear admission that money trumps everything else.

Decoding this Rosetta Stone requires just a bit of contextual information from Siena College. According to the school's surveys, only 58 percent of New Yorkers support legalizing gay marriage, while a whopping 78 percent support raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50.

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Throughout the president's first term, his most ardent supporters have reacted to those of us pushing him to do – and say – more on such issues with frustration and anger, some of it nasty and personal, some of it thoughtful and well-argued. They rightly blame Congress for blocking action on key progressive priorities, but strangely downplay the power of presidential leadership. Late last year, New York magazine's Jonathan Chait twice attacked liberal Obama critics for being "unreasonable" about what the president alone could accomplish, because "liberals, on the whole, are incapable of feeling satisfied with a Democratic president."

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The New York-based publisher said Tuesday that Canadian character Jean-Paul Beaubier will marry his beau, Kyle Jinadu, in the pages of "Astonishing X-Men" No. 51. That's due out June 20.

Northstar revealed he was gay in the pages of "Alpha Flight" No. 106 in 1992. He was one of Marvel's first characters to do so.

Since then, numerous comic book heroes and villains have been identified as gay, lesbian or transgender.

Marjorie Liu is writing the series. She says the decision to have the pair marry was fitting, noting that the relationship between Kyle and Northstar has grown in recent years.

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Marvel Entertainment LLC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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But it's nonetheless disappointing that a man we at Salon bestowed our highest honor to just six months ago has proven himself so terribly unenlightened. In an interview for Examiner.com last week, one of our 2011 Sexiest Men declared of marriage, "It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old." Oh dear. Winning lots of fights? Sexy. Getting elected to the Filipino Congress? Sexy. "Donating millions to improve living conditions in his poverty-stricken nation"? Super hot. Not being down with civil rights? Bzzzzzzt!

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My old friend Joe Gagnon is getting married today to Paul Adamczak, his longtime partner. How I hate that word “partner”! As if Joe and Paul were members of the same law firm. Within the hour, I am pleased to realize, they will be partners no longer. Under District of Columbia law, they will be husbands.

Today’s ceremony is freighted with extra excitement. Only three days ago, President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. The subject is much discussed here at the wedding. Of course, as an invitee mentions, Obama’s endorsement alters not a jot of law, not a tittle of policy. Yet a cultural barrier has been crossed, a taboo forever retired. The highest officer in the land and, by extension, his political party and half the country have embraced today’s ceremony as their own. We are a sideshow, an outlier, no longer.

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I don't mean to downplay the importance of having the president support marriage equality. It's a decisive blow in the culture war. For years, the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, has been able to deflect criticism by pointing out that Obama shared its views.

"Four years ago in California, Prop. 8 supporters had a flyer that they passed out saying Obama opposed same-sex marriage," says John Lewis, legal director for Equality USA, a gay-rights group. "They used his equivocation quite effectively against us. They can’t do that anymore."

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Homophobia is the last refuge of open bigotry in American life. Racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny still exist, but they lurk in the shadows. It is no longer socially acceptable in any segment of society to openly say that blacks are violent or Latinos are lazy or Jews are grasping or women are genetically inferior. But it is still acceptable to say the crudest and most hate-filled things about gay people. In his 1999 book “One Nation, After All,” sociologist Alan Wolfe found that Americans were remarkably tolerant and open-minded about every controversial subject except one: homosexuality. Attitudes toward gays have become far more enlightened during the last 13 years, but Wolfe’s findings touch on a profound social reality: Many Americans still feel gays are somehow unacceptable, or scary, or immoral, or just different in some way that makes it acceptable to discriminate against them and/or openly disparage them.

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Indeed not, but while Obama’s expressed support for marriage equality changes nothing legally, his words — and particularly those about how his faith informed his views — signal a new direction away from kowtowing to a religiously narrow concept of marriage. In previous statements Obama had parroted the conservative line about “one man and one woman” and just two years ago paid homage to “traditional marriage.” Today Obama explicitly rejected the idea that religious conservatives have a monopoly, either legally or rhetorically, on defining marriage as a straights-only institution.

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In our polarized country I fear that the president's endorsement of gay marriage will be seized on by the religious right as yet another sign of his Godlessness. But religion, most Americans feel, must evolve too; the Bible must be open to contemporary interpretations, just as the Constitution is. Although Dan Savage stirred up some hostility with his recent contention that the Bible has to be reinterpreted for each generation, he made a strong case that we should no more honor Old Testament taboos of homosexuality than in its explicit endorsement of slavery.

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The latest Gallup poll shows that public opinion has gotten a little cooler toward gay marriage in just the last year, though most Americans support it. The sad truth is, most Americans may back it, but those who oppose it have been far more motivated to cast votes based on their animus, so far anyway.

That said, it was the right and necessary thing for the president to do. Future generations will look back and wonder what took him so long. The president believes in the saying attributed Martin Luther King Jr., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Despite his too-slow "evolution" on gay marriage, Obama knows the arc bends faster when we pull on it, and today he gave it a good tug.

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In light of Obama's past support for gay marriage as a state legislator and his recent refusal to sign an order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, it would be logical to assume that -- sans a full-scale reversal (which may be in the works tonight) -- the president's position has been "evolving" toward more entrenched opposition to equality.

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Looks like the 2012 election will be the moment. First, the Romney campaign appointed an openly gay foreign policy advisor, Richard Grenell. “It’s not an issue for us,” Eric Fehrenstrom, Romney's senior adviser, reportedly said after Grenell disclosed that he was gay.

Within days, religious conservative and plain old conservative opinion makers in the Republican Party orbit unleashed a tsunami of criticism. The gay diplomatic expert actually supported same-sex marriage; what does his appointment say about Romney’s commitments, they demanded to know. Told to lie low until the controversy blew over, Grenell resigned, leaving the Romney campaign looking clumsy or spineless (or both).

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So this is quite a showdown. There’s much talk of liberty, lifestyle and family -- and a whole lot of talk about God. As opponents and supporters target churches all the way from Appalachia to the Outer Banks, religious leaders are flooding the airwaves to share their views on a hot button issue that throws core values into stark relief.

Growing up, I attended a church in Raleigh that is deeply involved in the current debate. And I can tell you that the fault lines are deep – and often surprising – to folks in other parts of the country.

A Tale of Two Churches

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“It wasn’t any struggle to get us on board,” Jackson says of his union, 1199, a local of the Service Employees International Union representing some 400,000 healthcare workers throughout the northeast. “We took a leadership role in putting together the coalition.”

Once the self-described guardian of “union power, soul power”—an ally of the Black Panthers and student New Leftists and an opponent of the Vietnam War—1199 is still a force for civil rights. This time, it joins a front of union confederates in the march for marriage equality. In fighting for “working families, not just certain families,” as Jackson put it in one campaign spot, labor is pushing the boundaries of queer politics while recharging its own power.

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Lately gay and LGBT-friendly Republicans have taken a major role in bankrolling and organizing the marriage campaign nationwide, as part of a fairly sudden and welcome shift in public attitude toward same-sex marriage and full legal equality for gays and lesbians. Some of the conservatives donating to equality causes have also donated to and fundraised for Romney. They are attempting to justify this fact in a few ways.

First, that Romney and Obama both oppose gay marriage. Which is true!

“Mitt Romney is where President Obama is on this issue,” a Republican backer of the likely nominee said.

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The revelation came the week after NOM memos, made public by a Maine court, revealed that they planned to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" by exploiting religious intolerance of homosexuality. (Another plot involved finding "children of gay parents willing to speak on camera" and denounce their parents.)

NOM remained quiet on these revelations for a while, until yesterday, when NOM sent a press release demanding a federal investigation into finding the person who sent those documents to the Human Rights Campaign. Yes, that will solve everything.

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How can this be? We’re in the middle of a Republican presidential primary, normally a time for conservatives to beat their chests over social and culture-war issues. And the most recent Republican Party platform promises to amend the United States Constitution to prohibit any further gay nuptials.

Freedom to Marry, which led the campaign against the repeal bill, credits its success in part to inroads it has made nationally with Republicans. Freedom to Marry’s founder, Evan Wolfson, credits conservatives like Ted Olson -- who led the challenge to Proposition 8 in California -- and former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman with accelerating that trend. Mehlman, newly out a year or two ago, was “very effective,” Wolfson says, in guiding them in New Hampshire. And polling showing an overwhelming opposition to the bill in New Hampshire certainly did not hurt.

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Three years before he was born, Abbie and I were married by an Episcopalian priest at the New York Botanical Garden. Over 200 guests attended, and the ceremony took place in an enclosed garden on a warm night in July. It was one of the first same-sex weddings featured in a national bridal publication (Modern Bride 2004), and there is a picture of us from that day — two blond women in gowns — on Tommy’s bedside table.

The day Tommy came out to me, we were walking home from school. He was telling me about Taylor, his most recent crush, when he stopped in the middle of the story, looked up and said, “Mama, you know how you and Mommy are gay?”

I nodded and figured he was going to ask more questions about why we had to get married for the second time.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not. I’m a boy who likes girls.”

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“If you look at attitudes today and where they are headed, it’s clear to me that supporting equal rights, including the rights to civil marriage, is a net positive for winning elections, as well as the right thing to do,” Mehlman said in an interview. “By contrast, opposing equal rights is a net negative that gets problematic to more voters each year.”

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