By Amanda Knox

I love the end of the year, if simply because there are enough holidays crammed together that many relatives and friends who are spread far and wide actually have the time off to travel and visit home. One such friend, a college buddy, now a world traveller, had lunch with me to catch up. The conversation steered towards Christmas. He got a high-tech clothes iron with 400 micro-holes. “It isn’t as fun as when we were kids,” he mused, chuckling.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. I got leather biking chaps. (Wee!!!)

But seriously, besides the gifts we give each other, one gift we strive to give ourselves at the end of the year is a moment to catch up. Facebook gives you the option of scrapbooking and sharing the highlights of your year. Media recaps the events that inspired the greatest followings. Individually and collectively we seek to characterize what was considered the present until so recently, the better to understand the context from which we move forward.

So much has happened to me this past year, but the one thing I’m most proud of is not something that affected me directly. And there’s even a little story to it.

When I first went to high school, I initially felt at a disadvantage. Much of my new freshman class seemed to arrive in flocks from the same neighborhoods and schools, whereas I was acquainted with only one previous schoolmate and one friend on the first day. Then, just after school started, my family traveled to Munich, Germany to celebrate Oktoberfest and visit relatives. Two weeks of crucial socializing were lost, albeit for an unforgettable trip I wouldn’t trade in. Finally, in those first few months, a rumor blazed through the school that I was a lesbian and I was made fun of and ostracized by some of my classmates.

I wasn’t a lesbian, but suddenly and for the first time in my life, I experienced prejudice, and it had a profound impact on me. After getting over the shock and outrage of it, I helped form the first Gay-Straight Alliance at my school. Still very shy and awkward, I attended Gay Pride.

Now, years later, it all came full circle when I had the chance to take part in the legalization of Same-Sex marriage. It was the greatest exercise of social justice I have ever directly experienced. So even while prejudice against the LGBT community remains, I feel profound pride in our society and relief that our Supreme Court justices came through for their citizens after all.

Journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote it inspiringly and concisely for Slate:
The decision [in Obergefell v. Hodges] pushed the court to confront the most difficult and enduring questions about our constitutional system. Can the Constitution condone laws that target and disadvantage a certain class of people? Can it let stand laws that are based on religious prejudice? Can our courts sanction an attempt by the majority to disenfranchise an entire group of Americans based simply on their immutable identity? Do the 14th Amendment’s dual guarantees of “liberty” and “equal protection” really apply to every “person,” as the Constitution states—or can voters strip some people of liberty and equality?

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s brave and impassioned opinion for the court answered these questions by looking back in time—back to when some states wished to ban marriages of interracial couples, or to force married women to be legally subservient to their husbands, or to limit married couples’ reproductive autonomy. The court, Kennedy noted, refused to validate these laws, instead choosing each time to expand the freedom to marry beyond its historical (and often bigotry-based) strictures. This case, the justice explained, is really no different. By once again choosing the path of greater freedom, Kennedy affirmed the Constitution’s critical role in safeguarding individual liberty over societal intolerance. It was an epochal moment for the Supreme Court—and for America.

2015 is being characterized as a year of strife, division, and “living dangerously.” Civilized peoples are trying to constructively and ethically confront the problems associated with terrorism, the refugee crisis, climate change, race relations, and division amongst ourselves.

But 2015 has also seen the exercise of tolerance, understanding, social justice, and yes, love. And the best part about it is we’ve given this gift to ourselves. We’ve asked ourselves to rethink bias. LoveHasNoLabels gave a beautiful demonstration of this in February of this year: Love has no gender. Love has no race. Love has no disability. Love has no age. Love has no religion. Before we are divided by difference, we are united by our love and our humanity.

I say, cheers to the path of greater freedom! Cheers to 2015! Onward and upward in 2016!