Progress in LGBT civil rights should be contagious

It was a year ago, on June 26, 2015, to be precise, when the US Supreme Court ruled that all states should issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize same-sex marriages in other jurisdictions.

So much has changed since my stay in Hawaii in the early 1990s, when that state tried to become the first in the US to legalize same-sex marriage. It became a reality in the Rainbow State only in 2013. On June 24, US President Barack Obama designated the Stonewall Inn in New York City as a national monument to commemorate the uprising of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community on June 28, 1969. The protest that day in response to a police raid ushered in the LGBT civil rights movement.

Late at night on July 24, 2011, I was outside the Stonewall Inn 2011 to cover the celebration when the New York state legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo the same day. June is a month of Pride parades and festivals, but this year celebrations are heavy with sadness because of the June 12 shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which 49 people were killed and 53 injured.