PRIDE 2026. TIME TO RAISE OUR VOICES IN A LOVING ROAR

We Still Remember Our Rainbow Cake for Marriage Equality

When the US legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, we celebrated grandly. Happy Pride!

Photo by Tatiana Rodriguez on Unsplash

Several years ago, my kitchen was commandeered by three high school students — my daughter and two of her friends. They unpacked grocery bags containing flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, sprinkles, food coloring — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

The date was June 26, 2015, and that morning the Supreme Court of the United States had upheld Marriage Equality. SCOTUS ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. States would be required to issue marriage licenses. Same-sex marriage would finally be supported and protected, validated and respected — as it should have been all along.

When the news hit, my husband and I stared at his computer screen. I turned still, knowing I was living history, feeling the moment from my shoes to the roots of my hair. Through the rest of the day, we followed reactions and reports. We spoke to our friends and celebrated together from all over the country.

My daughter and her friends, however, had other plans. They charged into our study and we hugged. Then they asked permission to go to the market for ingredients to bake “the most awesome rainbow cake ever.”

Before they left for their rainbow shopping excursion, they huddled, forming a plan. They chose a complicated checkerboard pattern, involving smaller cakes fitting into larger cakes, layered in a three-dimensional puzzle. They knew their measurements needed to be exact, but my daughter took the lead and was undaunted. (She grew up to become a scientist, and chem-lab-precision intimidated her not in the slightest.)

Throughout the afternoon, I thought of the people I knew growing up, the adults whose sexuality rendered them (according to the law of the land) unfit for marriage. They were life partners through my childhood, into my adulthood, together until death parted them. By June 26, 2015, many had died, and I wish they had lived to see that day. They couldn’t have their own weddings or marriage licenses, but they had their love, and that love paved the way for Marriage Equality to validate the next generation’s love. On that day in 2015, I thought of them smiling down on us. I imagined a celestial celebration. I’ll bet the rainbow cake in Heaven was ambrosial.

I’ll bet the rainbow cake in Heaven was ambrosial.

Here on earth, the kids’ baking project consumed several hours. At some point, I ordered pizza, and the chefs took a break to eat. They chatted about friends and teachers, relaxed and joking in the style of adolescents (music blasting, talking over each other, in and out of hysterics, devouring gargantuan amounts). They wondered if their friends had heard the news, and texted a few to be sure. Like me, my daughter had known people on the LGBTQ+ spectrum from the day she was born. It never occurred to her to draw lines between different sexualities and gender identities.

As she and her friends worked their way through two pizzas, they knew that our country had taken a step toward something righteous, beautiful, and long overdue.

Righteous and beautiful notwithstanding, our kitchen was hit with a maelstrom. We found rainbow-colored sparkles in impossible places. One of the chefs held the electric mixer too high, and icing spattered the walls, the stove, the refrigerator door, the ceiling, and their faces (which they found hilarious). The kitchen’s full recovery took days, and whenever we found the next stash of hidden sparkles or stepped on something sticky, we smiled.

Now it’s Pride Month, 2026, and the LGBTQ+ community is under attack.

Still, I will celebrate Pride. I’ll write for LGBTQ+ equality, stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ+ members of We The People. I hold hope that in the future, my world will regain its higher evolutionary faculties, and pledge allegiance to reason and decency. I will not back down until LGBTQ+ and cisgender/straight people are viewed and treated with the exact same level of respect, support and acceptance.

I’ll always carry, in the depth of my core, June 26, 2015. I’ll remember the awe I felt when I learned that the choice to marry finally belonged to all of We the People. I’ll smile at the memory of our sticky and sparkly kitchen. I’ll feel the shot of triumph we shared when my daughter cut into the cake and we applauded the perfect checkerboard rainbow.

I’ll smile at the memory of our sticky and sparkly kitchen.

On that day, our world became a better place.

That night, President Obama had the White House lit in the colors of the rainbow.

Some day in the future, our world will become a better place again.

Our nights will rest in soft darkness, and every dawn’s early light will bring hope.

I write for that day, that dawn, that night.

Happy Pride!

This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, **Pride 2026, Time To Raise Our Voices in a Loving Roar!**

[embed]It’s Pride 2026, Time To Raise Our Voices in a Loving Roar! A Prism & Pen writers promptmedium.com