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 sounds 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 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
