Repeal It!
I have a confession to make to you.
Some of my relatives are classified as African-American. I also have cousins that would be classified as Asian.
Down where I come from, intermarriage between Injuns and Darkies isn’t all that uncommon, and I have relatives in the military who brought back wives who are less than white.
When I was a kid, I had a distant cousin that I hung out with a lot. He happened to be more Af-Am in appearance than anything else, although he is in reality a mongrel-much like I am.
Some other kids thought they’d get a rise out of me one day when my cousin wasn’t around. “Hey-where’s your brother?” Snickering among the whole group.
“He isn’t my brother,” I replied evenly and without a trace of levity. “He’s my cousin.”
The snickering stopped. Stunned looks on a bunch of stupid faces.
Yes, I have a point with this story.
I don’t think that I was harmed, or am being harmed, by having a lot of mix in my extended family. A lot of those folks have gone on to lead perfectly happy and normal lives, with good marriages and happy kids. A lot of them have not. But a lot of my white relatives have also had a lot of trouble in the stable marriage/happy family department. The point here is that the assholes that went around screaming about racial mixing being the “destruction” of marriage were full of shit. People are people; we’re pretty much all the same. We succeed and we fail, and who we love doesn’t make any difference. What can make a difference is the inclusion of pressure from society on us; all of us have enough trouble negotiating life without the additional stupidity of being discriminated against because of something as private as who we love.
If what you do isn’t harming me (or greater society as a whole,) then there should not be a law against it; that’s what we call the “tyranny of the majority,” and the Founders clearly intended to stomp on it. There is a reason the United States Constitution establishes things like a ban on discrimination based on things like religious preferences, and the Amendments that gave minorities and women the rights that a free society ought to hold dear for ALL its members were great strides towards the “more perfect union” the Founders envisioned. In the States, however, the trend has been in the other direction for many years now; majorities are voting to deny rights to American citizens based on nothing more than religious convictions. This is an appalling abuse of the electoral process, it is clearly counter to the vision (if not always the actions) of the Founders, and it absolutely constitutes the “tyranny of the majority” the Founders worried about. It is my belief that in cases like these, the Federal Courts must exercise their Constitutional prerogative to vacate such laws. We will not achieve a more perfect union by legalizing discrimination against any members of our society who are harming no one, and doing nothing more than trying to pursue that happiness that Jefferson talked about.
In California, an opportunity to repeal a hateful law enacted by religious bigots is coming up. Let’s hope they do the right thing.
The biggest U.S. gay rights battle next year is brewing in a California federal court as raucous fights over same-sex marriage in state legislatures and at state ballot boxes subside.
In part, 2010 will reflect a growing move by same-sex marriage advocates to building support for their civil rights cause outside of the election process.
The federal challenge to California’s ban may be the only conflict in clear sight after a mixed 2009 that saw Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire legalize gay marriage and Washington, D.C., vote for legalization, while there were setbacks in other states that had been expected to follow.
“The focus is very much on this one case,” said Andy Pugno, a California lawyer who successfully defended California’s ban in the state supreme court and is helping in the federal defense as well.
New York state legislators failed to back gay marriage and a New Jersey effort has hit snags and has a few weeks to act before a new governor who opposes such gay unions takes office. Maine voters rejected same-sex marriage by a thin margin similar to the California 2008 ban, which is being contested in the San Francisco federal court.
“We believed that this is something that needs to be vindicated at the federal constitutional level, and I think that that is reinforced by what’s happened in Maine and what did not happen, for example in New Jersey, and what did not happen in New York,” said David Boies, one of the lead lawyers in the federal case.
Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004 and California had a summer of legalization in 2008 before voters banned it.
Trial is set to start January 11 in San Francisco. Boies and co-lead Ted Olson argue that marriage is a U.S. constitutional right too fundamental to limit and that gays and lesbians are a discriminated group that deserve special court protection.
I never thought Ted Olson and I would be on the same side of an issue, but he couldn’t be more right about this. It has always been my opinion that there is no way you can enact a ban on gay marriage and stay within the Constitutional guarantees of citizens’ rights, and the States are no more entitled to enact these noxious laws than Dixie was to enact Jim Crow laws. Anyone who thinks that he or she sees a provision in the Constitution for stripping American citizens of the rights they were born with is welcome to argue that point with me here. I don’t delete comments unless they’re threatening.
The Jesusistani scum who cry about “harm” done to society simply cannot prove it, because no evidence for it exists except in their own minds. I would argue that I have a much better shot at proving the harm done to society by organized religion.
Tags: california, homophobia, religion, rushpubliscums
December 19th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I don’t know if you’re aware of Christian Legal Scholars v. Martinez,also in California?
I don’t know if it’s specifically the UC system or Cali state law, but discrimination on sexual orientation is prohibited.UC Hastings in SF would not recognize the CLS due to their banning gays, however they allowed them to meet on campus and use of a room.
Well the CLS sued and lost.Went to the 9th Circuit (highest in Western US) and lost. Now it’s going to the Supreme Court in March of next year.
This is an important case, it would establish an abysmal precedent-that non discrimination rules could be circumvented on religious grounds.
December 19th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I’m sure God knows what these Pharisees and Sadducees are doing, and I’m sure she is very pissed off.
December 19th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Specifically on the racism issue, I, an American normative White guy, was in a relationship with a Black woman a few years ago. No one in our common social group nor anyone in my very WASPy family seemed to mind, if indeed they had opinions at all.
Her own family, on the other hand, was so dead set against our pairing that, after a single dinner to which I was invited without her parents knowing I was White, she was told never to put me in their presence again. Her brother threatened me bodily, saying that she needed to “keep to her own people,” and her grandmother threatened to disinherit her. I was constantly amazed at their vitriol over the very idea that there daughter could be romantically involved with someone like me.
Ultimately, we didn’t work out as a couple. This was not primarily because of her family’s disapproval but I’m sure it figured into her thinking somewhere. It certainly did make things awkward between us when discussing family matters.
I’m not suggesting that somehow White people aren’t racists anymore, nor that somehow the tables have turned. It just shows that the stereotypes don’t cover the truth, which is always more complicated than is convenient.
December 19th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Convenient or not, Thomas, the “values” types are racists almost to a man and woman. The “Kenyan” and “Muslim” crappola fed to the right wing is a set of dog whistle words, much as Caribou Barbie’s “real America” rhetoric is.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Excellent post, JR. How remarkable about Olson. That’s a head shaker.
Discrimination based on ignorance, fear, the desire to feel superior by casting others as inferior or unworthy, is a cancer that eats away at a society from the inside. I’m not gay, but I know that if those intent on discriminating against gays get their way, my life and freedoms are in some measure compromised too. And, it reveals the society I’m part of is less fair, decent and civilized than it could and should be.
Full rights and protections for gays and lesbians are on the way. It’s no longer a matter of whether, but of when. If that California case is decided as it should be, the schedule will be stepped up quite a bit. I sincerely hope that happens.
As for the “values” types and the religious right, they need to be constantly reminded of a commandment they seem to feel somehow doesn’t apply to them: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I never have gotten one of them to give a sensible explanation of how/why they’re exempt from that.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Yes, SW, but what will Rushpubliscum lawmakers do for work if we get rid of bigotry?
December 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
“I would argue that I have a much better shot at proving the harm done to society by organized religion.”
Amen to that. Seems most all of our recent problems is due to religions.