If you haven’t read my column from yesterday, I suggest you check it out. There is actually a pretty spirited (albeit misguided) debate in the comments section. I don’t understand how a position on women having access to birth control somehow spins itself into abortion – but that’s the talking points that most conservatives are used to, I guess. Since I’ve been doing such a great job at pissing off the tight-assed (no pun intended) Red-voters of this country, I thought I’d talk about gay marriage today!
“I now pronounce you… just as legally allowed to be as miserable as straight people who are married.”
In a landmark decision, The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California’s controversial “Proposition 8” was unconstitutional, and struck it down as discriminatory towards homosexuals. The court argued that gay people have the same rights as straight people, which is a start:
“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” said Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the majority opinion. “The Constitution simply does not allow for ‘laws of this sort’.”
All of the arguments made by religious whackjobs revolved around the sanctity of marriage and the moral outrage that they, and their God, have against homosexuals having the same rights as straight people. However, they were unable to form one coherent LEGAL argument as to why that should be the case. Turns out “It was written in a book a couple thousand years ago that homosexuality is a sin” doesn’t really hold a lot of weight in a federal appeals court. Most marriages are failures anyway – could gay people REALLY do worse?
The issue of same-sex marriage is NOT a partisan issue, although Republicans try to make it one. In fact, the two lawyers who fought the Prop 8 decision, David Boyce and Ted Olson were the lawyers who argued Bush v. Gore in 2000 on opposing sides. The consensus is that it is not constitutional to take away, or deny rights to any group of Americans for any reason – sexual orientation being one of those reasons. The court said if you are going to select citizens based on traits that are peculiar to just them, there has to be a reason. “God hates fags” didn’t cut it.
It’s hard to believe that it was only around 45 years ago that 16 states in the US had laws in place that made it illegal for white people to marry black people. The Supreme Court had to rule that it was unconstitutional before those states were forced to allow mixed marriages. If Barack Obama’s parents would have tried to get married in Virginia in 1967 – they would have been thrown in jail.
Think about that for a second. Do you think it’s a crime for people of different races to marry? Do you think it’s a sin? Of course not… at least I’d hope not. I’m sure there are still some people sitting on a porch in Mississippi today talking about how they should have never let those niggers near our women. I’m sure there are still some pockets of this country who think that people of different races should not be allowed to have children. I’m also sure that 40 years from now when we look back at this, there will still be people on the porch talking about how those fa**ots ruined marriage.
… Do you really want to be on that porch?
