Shane Bitney Crone is Humanizing Marriage

More than two million people have watched it on YouTube. And now Shane Bitney Crone discusses why he created the heartbreaking video about his late partner Thomas Bridegroom in hopes of bringing attention to the issue of same-sex marriage. Crone talked to CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux (interview starts at 2:39 mark) about what happened after his partner died tragically after falling from a rooftop, how he was forbidden by Bridegroom’s family to attend the funeral and what could have been different if the two men were simply able to marry legally.

“After he passed away,” says Crone, Bridegroom’s mother traveled from Indiana to California to retrieve her son’s body. But after the coroner released it, that would be the last time Crone would have any stake in planning his partner’s memorial. “I was not a part of planning the funeral services at all. I had no idea what was happening. …I never heard from her again.”

Check it out: