Michelle Obama Defied Secret Service to Celebrate Equal Marriage with the Public
In her new memoir ‘Becoming’, Michelle Obama reveals she snuck past secret service agents to celebrate the US Supreme Court ruling that legalised equal marriage in 2015.
She remembers her husband lighting up the White House in rainbow colours to commemorate the decision.
“Looking out the window, I saw that beyond the gates on Pennsylvania Avenue, a big crowd of people had gathered in the summer dusk to see the lights,” she wrote.
“The north drive was filled with government staff who’d stayed late to see the White House transformed in celebration of marriage equality. The decision had touched so many people. From where I stood, I could see the exuberance, but I could hear nothing. It was an odd part of our reality.”
She then found herself “suddenly desperate to join the celebration,” with her then-16-year-old daughter Malia wanting to come.
“We were going on an adventure—outside, where people were gathered—and we weren’t going to ask anyone’s permission.
“Malia and I were now on a crusade. We weren’t going to relinquish our goal. We were going to get ourselves outside.”
They then “busting past the agents on duty” and “made our way down a marble staircase and over red carpets, around the busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and past the kitchen until suddenly we were outdoors.
“And there it was, the hum of the public, people whooping and celebrating outside the iron gates. It had taken us 10 minutes to get out of our own home, but we’d done it.
“We were outside, standing on a patch of lawn off to one side, out of sight of the public but with a beautiful, close-up view of the White House, lit up in pride.
“Malia and I leaned into each other, happy to have found our way there.”
Keep up to date with the latest myGnews
