NS November 21st, 2008
If you haven’t already heard, the California State Senate ruled that it would review lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of the ballot initiative Proposition 8 that passed with 52% of the vote on November 4th. Prop 8 is an initiative that was set forth by anti-gay group Protect Marriage (which I refuse to link to) to “protect” marriage’s definition as between a man and a woman. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The court agreed Wednesday to review two arguments by opponents of Prop. 8: that the measure exceeds the legal scope of a ballot initiative by allowing a majority to restrict a minority group’s rights, and that it violates the constitutional separation of powers by limiting judicial authority.
The justices also asked for arguments on whether Prop. 8, if constitutional, would nullify 18,000 same-sex weddings performed between when the court’s marriage ruling took effect in mid-June and Nov. 4. Attorney General Jerry Brown, who will defend Prop. 8 as the state’s chief lawyer, contends those marriages are legal, but sponsors of the initiative disagree.
The justices asked for written arguments to be submitted through Jan. 21. The court could hold a hearing as early as March, and a ruling would be due 90 days later.
At first glance this seems a good thing but many in the LGBT community and their supporters are not overly optimistic for a positive result and were dismayed that the Court would not allow same-sex marriages to continue while the proposition’s legality is debated. Thousands of married couples will be waiting and wondering if their unions are to be declared null and void at the desultory stroke of a pen.
A pen.
A declaration and some ink is all it would take to destroy what they’ve fought so hard for, to snatch away the unity and peace they’d finally found. The irony is that an even older, more famous declaration and some ink promised them, promised all of us, that we would be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That declaration was wrong.
Instead, a bunch of people who don’t know or even care to know them pushed some buttons inside a booth and – poof! – their marriages go up in smoke. Who are these wizards of Oz, these faceless, nameless people behind the curtain? Do they know who they’re hurting and how deeply? Are they so afraid of what others’ marriages say about their own that they have to squash them? Do they not understand how small and foolish, how hateful and narrow-minded it makes them appear? In contrast to what many of them claim to be acting in God’s name for, do they not understand love?
If you think this is simply a case of people who will not be moved, who cannot be changed, dogs who won’t learn new tricks, read this*. If an 87-year-old war veteran can stand up for love and understand what freedom to express that love means, so can the Christian, middle-aged, middle-class couple who met at Bible college and think God looks on them with a special kind of light and has bestowed upon them a world reserved exclusively for their use and enjoyment. Even in all their deluded arrogance, I believe they could eventually be swayed to come around if they only understood that it wasn’t about them, or God, or “promoting homosexuality,” but about care and companionship.
It’s also not about politics, or the economy. Right now, it’s just about the freedom to love. Because we all deserve that.
And if you’re feeling saucy or brave or just plain pissed off, on December 10th (International Human Rights Day) you can Call in Gay and spend the day volunteering at a human rights organization instead of slumping behind a desk all depressed about it.
Fight the H8!
*Via blue milk
