Great profile in today’s Washington Post of a couple who will be among the first to legally marry in the District of Columbia today. Definitely worth a read:
Young and Townsend don’t know why anyone would want to read about them. They’re boring people — a community outreach coordinator (Young) and a D.C. government supervisor (Townsend). They read, they shoot pool, they occasionally go dancing, they walk the dog. Townsend, 41, paints and has filled their Southeast Washington home with art. Young, 47, is a bubbly Lucille Ball type. They complement each other. What more is there to say?But maybe Mildred and Richard Loving, the Virginia couple whose marriage ultimately ended anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, also thought they were boring. There are people who seek out fame, and there are people whose boring lives get sewed up into the fabric of history and become accidental celebrities. Maybe, someone suggests to Young and Townsend, their lives will become part of historical record. Forty years from now people will wonder who they were.
The women didn’t expect the avalanche of attention that the week brought — the phone calls, the e-mails, the international press, the sudden dissolution of privacy. Young was recognized in the shopping mall the other day by a man who had seen her on television when she emerged from the courthouse.
“You know what they say about everyone getting 15 minutes of fame?” Young says. “I can’t wait for Minute 16.”
HRC will be livestreaming this marriage and a couple others today here at 10:00 a.m.
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