The death of Andrew Wilfahrt in Afghanistan moved his parents, Lori and Jeff, to advocate for marriage equality.
H/T to MadPriest at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong... where I first saw the video.
UPDATE: Thanks to Murdoch Matthew in the comments for the link to an article about Andrew in Stars and Stripes.
Lori and Jeff Wilfahrt, Andrew’s parents, have the milquetoast looks of middle-age Midwesterners: gray hair, rimmed glasses, apple-pie ordinary. Yet make no mistake: These lifelong Minnesotans might be the most powerful force to join the same-sex marriage movement.Lori and Jeff look like giants next to the likes of Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty.
In a state that has produced GOP presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty -- who have made careers fighting gay marriage -- these parents of an American hero present a major challenge to the establishment.
They'll take their battle to the Supreme Court, if that's what it takes. To the Wilfahrts, denying gays the right to marry is discrimination against a group to which their son belonged.
UPDATE 2: From Mike in Texas in the comments comes a link to a moving story about Andrew at CNN:
A lover of literature, Jeff always brings a collection of William Wordsworth. He flips the pages to "Expostulation and Reply." He sits on the marble stone commemorating his son and reads aloud. Lori sits on the ground nearby.
He gets to the last verse and chokes up:
"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,Jeff stands quickly, touching the grey stone with his hand, as if reaching out to his beloved son from beyond the grave. He trembles and cries. "I can never get through the last paragraph," he says. "What the hell's wrong with me?"
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away."
Lori stands, too. The two stare at the headstone. Tears still streaming down his face, Jeff says, "It's just the shits." He whispers again, "It's just the shits."
They want people to know their son wasn't a "gay soldier." He was a great soldier who happened to be gay. Above all, he was a citizen.
A remarkable man, his epitaph reads.
