"Grab a hanky," writes Joan Walsh today on San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' painful eleventh-hour decision to fight for gay rights and the rights for gay men and women to marry. "This is the way necessary social change happens. It starts out unthinkable, and then one day it's inevitable."

In a moving speech, choking back tears, Mayor Jerry Sanders explains why he changed his mind moments before he was to veto the San Diego City Council Resolution:

"The concept of a 'separate but equal' institution is not something I can support."

He reveals that his own daughter Lisa as well as members of his staff are gay: "In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships -- their very lives -- were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana."