When New York’s marriage equality law goes into effect on Sunday July 24, some town and city clerks offices will hold special hours so that couples can immediately get marriage licenses and marry.

According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, “state law requires couples to wait 24 hours after receiving a license before they can be married, unless they obtain a judicial waiver. …Notably, however, the New York City Clerk’s Office will begin issuing marriage licenses on July 24 and judges will be on hand to officiate marriages that day.”

Sunday will be one of the happiest days in the lives of loving couples and the family and friends who come to witness their commitment to one another. But that’s not all they may witness. National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is planning to drop a turd on Sunday’s weddings by staging rallies around the state in support of an anti-equality constitutional amendment.

Who spends their summer Sundays trying to ruin other people’s weddings, especially when such a mean-spirited amendment has no hope of being realized in New York?

That’s the rhetorical question we equality advocates need to be asking our families and friends in the next weeks. NOM’s plans for July 24 provide us with a perfect conversation starter around why marriage equality is so important to us, and what we’re up against in securing and maintaining our equal rights.

NOM’s rallies also provide a unique opportunity for heterosexual family and friends participating in weddings that day to stand in our shoes and experience, for just a moment, what we LGBT people experience daily. Asking friends and family to reflect on and discuss that experience is an opportunity that should not be missed. By emotionally injuring our family and friends in this way, NOM will create LGBT allies with a resolve to fight just that much harder for LGBT equality.