I doubt if I’ll be in the class picture of legislators at yesterday’s signing of the marriage equality bill.

            I was in the back of the group and caught only a bare glimpse of the camera lenses and cell phones.

           Right afterwards, however, Delegate Keiffer Mitchell introduced me to Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

           Keiffer’s grandfather, Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.,  was the chairman of the Leadership Conference.  His lobbying of the Congress was instrumental in the passage of the civil rights laws in the 1960’s.

            “Delegate Rosenberg is a scholar of the civil rights movement,” Del. Mitchell kindly said.

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            This morning, the Sun ran dueling op-eds on marriage.

            “All children, no matter who their parents are, must be protected under the same set of laws,” read the second sentence of the column written by Joe Solomonese, president oif the Human Rights Campaign.

            Children were mentioned three more times in his essay.

            People “should be able to vote their consciences in November without fear of being labeled ‘intolerant bigots,’” wrote Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien.

            The Cardinal referred to intolerance on three additional occasions and the “draconian dictate” of the law once.

             If the referendum debate this fall is about children and civil rights, the marriage equality bill will be approved.

             If it is about intolerance, it will fail.