When I first heard of the federal case for same sex
marriage I agreed with some of the things I read. Maybe this was the wrong
time. Maybe it was doomed to fail, based on the history of other challenges
which weren’t supported by a majority on a state level.
I’ve been there since, wondering what the right answer
is. I still don’t know, in terms of legal success. But after reading a recent
article, written by David Boies, one of the lawyers in the case, I’m hopeful.
I’ve never felt this issue had anything to do with
anyone’s personal opinion, as those voting to restrict civil rights, do. This
is a matter of law, of reverence to the words as written in our founding
documents. The reason Christians and others opposed to legal same sex marriage
avoid the constitution is because there’s nothing that can help them there. The
constitution only hurts them, destroys them, in fact, supporting none of their
platforms.
Until recently, Americans who denounce
non-heterosexuals and deny us our rights, haven’t had much to worry about. It’s
only in our very recent history that we’ve demanded marriage equality. While
it’s been tossed around in the past, it’s never been anywhere near as big an
issue as it is now, and it’s never had such a large group of Americans behind
it. In the past, it wasn’t running through conservative minds that certain
legal judgments, which were based on the equality of the constitution, would
open the doors for gay marriage in the future. The idea that non-heterosexual
Americans would demand marriage equality was ridiculous. It wasn’t on their
radar.
Somehow, this issue of marriage
equality, which is a simple and clear cut case of equal rights for all
Americans, has been hijacked to the "will of the people". Despite the
fact that the California Supreme Court ruled only last year that to deny same
sex couples the right to the word marriage was to, in effect, deny them
equality, they ignored their own decision and allowed the majority to restrict
the minority. This isn’t how law works in this nation. Why did it go that way?
I don’t know, but it sound like the lawyers in the Federal Case know exactly
what the truth of this issue is, and they intend to present it.
Even though I’ll work with others if a
ballot measure becomes a reality, I don’t believe for one second that it’s the
right thing to do. It may be our only option at this moment, but it’s certainly
not right for us to take equal rights to the ballot box when we denounce others
for doing it. So hopefully a federal case can be heard and can succeed, and put
an end to all this insanity.
The article by David Boies begins with
this…
"When I got married in California in 1959 there were almost
20 states where marriage was limited to two people of different sexes and the
same race. Eight years later the Supreme Court unanimously declared state bans
on interracial marriage unconstitutional.
Recently, Ted Olson and I brought a lawsuit asking the courts to
now declare unconstitutional California’s Proposition 8 limitation of marriage
to people of the opposite sex. We acted together because of our mutual
commitment to the importance of this cause, and to emphasize that this is not a
Republican or Democratic issue, not a liberal or conservative issue, but an
issue of enforcing our Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and due
process to all citizens."
Our battle has never been so eloquently
presented as it is in this article, in my opinion. Read the full article HERE