DOMA Plaintiff Edie Windsor, Prop. 8 Attorney David Boies Honored at NYU 2013 Commencement: VIDEO

NYU had its 2013 commencement yesterday, and it was all about marriage equality, and it was stirring.

DOMA plaintiff Edie Windsor was given the school's Presidential Medal, and Prop. 8 lawyer David Boies was the keynote speaker. Mr. Boies received a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa. He was introduced by constitutional law professor Kenji Yoshino (second video).

Said Boies: "One of the platitudes of our country is that all people are created equal. I can't tell you today how the Supreme Court is going to rule in June but what I can tell you is that if we don't win it in Perry we will continue the fight until we do win it. So congratulations, and join us in trying to make platitudes real."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Flanked by Prop 8 Plaintiffs, Attorney Steve Warren Rails Against Inequality, Antonin Scalia: VIDEO

Flanked by Kris Perry, Sandra Stier, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case, attorney Steve Warren spoke passionately at this weekend's GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco about the Supreme Court's consideration of marriage and the coming June ruling on DOMA and Proposition 8.

Warren urged the conservative justices, particularly Scalia, to take a deeper look than he has in the past:

"Picture this image. The nine justices are sitting at an oval table in their conference room, deliberating these cases, deliberating our fate. When one of the justices brings up a line of reasoning used by our opponents that goes like this: marriage is an age-old tradition reserved for opposite sex couples that is needed to encourage society's interest in procreation. So, When Justice Antonin Scalia, a man who has repeatedly debased our families and our community, takes up this line of attack, and looks to one side and sees Justice Thomas and to his other side and sees Chief Justice Roberts, two men who have created their families through the beauty of adoption, just as I have done myself with my daughter Katie, we would all hope that the hypocrisy of this argument would dawn on him and move him."

Watch Warren's speech, AFTER THE JUMP...

Darren Criss Sings Gay Rights-Themed Version of 'Call Me Maybe': VIDEO

Darren Criss took the stage at this weekend's GLAAD awards in Los Angeles and said he'd be performing the original lyrics from "Call Me Maybe", some of which went like this:

"Hey Supreme Court, we say no hate, so good-bye DOMA, and so long Prop 8."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Thank the Law for Marriage Equality Momentum

By ARI EZRA WALDMAN

In both the run up to and in the wake of historic Supreme Court arguments on gay equality (which you can read about here, here, here, here, and here), several political leaders from both parties have come out in favor of the freedom to marry. We've had Jon Huntsman, a Republican; Mark Begich, a Democrat; Rob Portman, a Republican; Hillary Clinton, a Democrat; Mark Kirk, a Republican; Bob Casey, a Democrat; and many others. And, they are just a tiny fraction of a fraction of the 58 % of Americans that now support our quest for marriage recognition.

Senators Begich, Portman, Kirk, and Casey are 4 among the 52 United States Senators -- more than 1/2 of that august body -- on the right side of history. Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, is the latest, and Sen. Kirk is the latest Republican to buck the continued bigotry of his party's base and leadership, a position for which he deserves credit. But, let's not put the latecomers above the vanguard, like Senator Ron Wyden (pictured), a Democrat, who came out for marriage equality in 1995, before "marriage equality" was the de rigueur phrase and long before every other proud progressive felt comfortable following his lead.

Conservatives and liberals have blasted some our most recent allies as "phony" opportunists, spineless, or worse. Chief Justice Roberts even derisively characterized them as "falling over themselves" to support us. Others say we should welcome the evolution as either the nature of the political beast or the product of a personal journey. That's a discussion worth having, but at the moment, I am more interested in what got us here.

If you have been reading the news over the past two weeks, your head might be spinning from the tidal wave of pro-equality support. I mixed those metaphors for a reason: it's a surprisingly accurate description. One by one, many of our politicians have jumped on the marriage bandwagon. There were some important moments along the way -- President Obama and Rob Portman come to mind -- but the momentum reached a climax in the week leading up the Supreme Court hearings on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Prop 8 case, and Windsor v. United States, the challenge to DOMA.

Timing was not our only ally; the law was, too. Federal court challenges to two harmful and discriminatory laws gave us the opportunity to replace the lies and fearmongering of the DOMA Congress and the Prop 8 proponents with truth and justice. And, the public learned, taking to heart the well-publicized lessons of court decision after court decision. Generational shifts are playing their role, but the law was the catalyst of the falling dominoes we read about every day. Hollingsworth and Windsor pushed public opinion, laying bare the emptiness of our opponents' arguments and the virulence of their hatred. There was little for politics to do other than to try and keep up.

I consider the catalytic effect of the law AFTER THE JUMP...

Cindy McCain to Appear in Phoenix Production of Dustin Lance Black's Play About the Prop. 8 Trial

Cindy McCAin is set to appear in a Phoenix production of 8, Dustin Lance Black's play dramatizing California's Proposition 8 trial produced by the Arizona Theatre Co. and former Tempe mayor Neil Giuliano, Phoenix Business Journal reports:

Nicole Stanton — the wife of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and an attorney at the commercial law firm Quarles & Brady LLP — is also scheduled to appear in the play on May 7, along with well-known attorney Grant Woods, media personality Pat McMahon and Phoenix City Councilman Tom Simplot. Simplot is also CEO of the Arizona Multihousing Association real estate group.

Neither McCain’s Senate office nor Hensley responded to requests for comment. The Republican senator has said in the past that he and his wife, as well as his outspoken daughter Meghan McCain, have differing views on gay marriage. Cindy and Meghan McCain appeared in “No on Prop. 8” advertisements in 2008.

McCain and Stanton are going to play Prop 8 plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandra Stier.

'Meet the Press' Covers the Supreme Court and Marriage with Al Sharpton and NOM Bigot Brian Brown: VIDEO

Pete Williams, Al Sharpton, AFER board member Rob Reiner, Peggy Noonan, and NOM bigot Brian Brownjoined Chuck Todd for a roundtable on SCOTUS and marriage equality yesterday.

Said Sharpton to Brown's tooting about NOM's North Carolina win:

"Public opinion and votes have nothing to do with this. The challenge of the court is not what they're going to do with votes. the challenge of the court is are they going to protect people's rights? When you look at the DOMA case and you look at miss Windsor who was not able it -- who was forced to pay over $350,000 in estate tax because she did not have the right of a partner who had passed on, who they had built this wealth together, her rights were violated. So there are many people who may agree with traditional marriage as people define it but feel they don't have the right to have an unequal situation with others and, therefore, define for them their life. My battle with Brian is not over marriage. My battle is he doesn't have the right to impose his definition of marriage and therefore make inequality on other people."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...