A Navy tradition of raffling off the first homecoming kiss turned into a poignant reminder of the sign of the times after the ship docked Wednesday and the winning female sailor kissed her awaiting girlfriend.
And now, the Tumblr blog for Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign has seemingly put its stamp of approval on the moment. On Thursday morning, the Tumblr reblogged The Associated Press photo of the kiss.
As the original blog post from The Guardian mentions, one year ago today (Dec. 22, 2010), Obama put his signature on the repeal of the 17-year-old Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The law was overturned in September 2011, which allowed Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta to win the raffle and publicly kiss her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell.
The blog has attracted more than 800 Tumblr "likes" and reposts in just two hours. The sentiment for the photo has been largely positive with Tumblr users reposting it with messages such as "It's about time. Beautiful," "Makes me want to cry" and "Thank you Mr. President."
"It was meant to be," says Snell in The Virginian Pilot video below. "I think that it's significant because it's the first time where we can actually show who we are. ... It's something that is going to open a lot of doors ... for all of the other gay and lesbian relationships in the military right now."
The Obama Tumblr launched in October and added to the president's already extensive social media presence.