I wish with all of my heart I could feel unhesitating joy today. But my heart is heavy and once more I want to ask, Pharaoh, when are you going to let my people go?
Eighteen-thousand legally married gay and lesbian couples woke up this morning in California with their marriage status in limbo. Think about that: think about waking up today to find that your fellow citizens had taken away your legal marriage. What would happen to your insurance? Inheritance? Social security death benefits? And over 100 other legal rights that are conferred by marriage? Easy come, easy go? How would you feel about this? This is the outcome of the vote on Proposition 8, which bans marriage equality. Think about this. These are people’s lives that are being played with here.
Proposition 8 was bankrolled entirely by extremist religious organizations (particularly the Mormon Church). You know — the folks who not only have all the right answers, but the mandate to force them on the rest of us. But there’s an itty-bitty little problem with mixing marriage and religion: marriage is a civil institution.
To deny gays and lesbians access to a civil — I emphasize, civil — institution on religious grounds is a gross and grotesque violation of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It is grotesque for many reasons, not the least of which is that it uses the same reasoning to deny same-sex marriage as was used as recently as my lifetime to deny interracial marriage. You know — how allowing people of different races to marry is against the Bible and will destroy the traditional family. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
How ironic that our President-elect is the child of an interracial marriage.
Let me put it this way: your church has no @#$-&@%#!$ right dictating how a civil institution works. You don’t want gays getting married in your church? Hey — I’ll personally do you a big damn favor and not get married in your church, how about that? And you stay the hell out of my City Hall.
And imagine this, too: the Civil Rights Act put up to a popular vote (“because the people have the right to decide”). Women’s suffrage put up to the popular vote. Yeah, I thought so too. Great idea. Democracy in action.
And hallelujah, brethren, last night Arizona and Florida successfully protected themselves from the looming ravages of marriage equality by banning same-sex marriage. Arkansas takes the cake, though — in a particularly devious and mean-spirited slap at gays and lesbians, the good citizens of the state voted overwhelmingly to ban adoption by single parents. Nice deal. Nothing more pressing to worry about down there, in one of the poorest and least-educated states in the Union. But praise the lord, those godless homosexuals won’t be adoptin’ any more of our chilluns! We’re saved!
There is a small silver lining to the situation in California, however: Proposition 2, which provided for more cage space for farm animals, passed. It’s a good day to be a chicken in The Golden State.
You can also bet that same farm that Proposition 8 is going straight to the courts. It is every bit as unconstitutional as Colorado’s infamous and unlamented Amendment 2 of sixteen years ago.
This country took a step of unimaginable dimensions yesterday by electing an African-American president and in doing so came that much closer to making real our creed that “all men are created equal.” But as long as gays and lesbians can be singled out for discrimination, used as scapegoats and whipping boys, we still ain’t there. We’re just the last ones at the back of the bus.
