It was the kiss heard round the web! Earlier this week, news that lesbian sailors became the first same-sex couple to kiss on the dock for the Navy’s time-honored “First Kiss” after one had returned from sea, began to seep out around the web. But then, the Virginian-Pilot released a short video of the kiss and an interview with the couple, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta –who returned from sea on the USS Oak Hill –and her partner Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, and the video and the photo of the now iconic kiss, indicative of the end of DADT, went viral, appearing on major news sites around the world.
Thursday the Washington Post ran a side-by-side comparison of the photo of Gaeta and Snell with Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous Life Magazine cover photo of a sailor dipping and kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day in 1945, and certainly the photo of the two women kissing on the dock in Virginia Beach has become a visual herald of the end of DADT.
The image of Gaeta and Snell appeared on all the major newspapers’ sites including the LA and New York Times, and even jumped the Atlantic to appear above the fold on the The Guardian UK.
While the lesbian sailors kiss certainly rippled through the web this week, but it was perhaps no more moving than when it appeared on the Navy’s official site, The Navy.Mil.
Here’s the video and kiss for anyone who hasn’t seen it or for those who want to celebrate the historic moment again.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
