Today, the Supreme Court is hearing a case for Proposition 8, a “voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage” in California. The Court is due to vote in June, and the outcome could be any one of various possible decisions: to “uphold the initiative” or “strike it down on grounds that could apply to California alone, to eight states or to all 50 states.
“The court could also decide to dismiss the appeal if it concludes that the sponsors lacked the legal authority to step in to defend Proposition 8 on appeal after California officials declined to do so.”
The optomist in me is hoping that the court will rule the ban as unconstitutional, and will therefore have no choice but to legalize same-sex marriage in all fifty states. I don’t see any way that such a ban could be determined constitutional, since the bottom line is that if the government can tell certain people they aren’t allowed to get married, then those people are clearly not equal in the eyes of that government.
Our country was founded on the basis of freedom and equality. We are supposed to be “the land of the free,” for crying out loud. If some of our citizens cannot get married to the person they love, we are hyppocrites. And we cannot focus on any of the other issues holding our country back until we are true to our own, most basic foundation.
The Nevada Legislature is also hearing on this issue this week. On Monday, I went to a demonstration to show my support for marriage equality – the only one in Nevada (my home state), but one of 170 across the country.
My first march! It was pretty exciting, and a little emotional.
We walked from City Hall to the famous Reno arch, and back again.
There were over 200 people marching, and many who could not march with us drove by and honked to show their support.
Some people say that same-sex marriage would somehow cheapen the very concept of marriage. As if any couple could affect the quality of another couple’s relationship.
My fiance and I are currently thinking about getting a civil union instead of getting “married.” It feels wrong to get married when we know that there are people just like us who don’t have that right.
What we’ve found out about civil unions make them sound like a complete pain. My employer would not be required to give my fiance health coverage if we only have a civil union. When we move out of state, as we plan to do eventually, we will have to re-register so that our new home state knows that we are together. And there are legal complications involved with the children we will have someday.
But what gives us the right to bypass these obstacles when millions of people in our country can’t? Millions of people who, like us, were promised liberty and justice for all.
So quite the contrary to same-sex marriage cheapening hetero marriage, it is actually injustice of the ban on same-sex marriage that is cheapening our hetero right to marry. The worst part is that Christians, people who believe that God is Love, are allowing hatred to win. They hate the idea of giving LGBT people the same rights that they themselves enjoy. Some of them even hate LGBT people. But a homosexual couple in a committed relationship is a better example of love, of the Divine on Earth, than a hateful person telling them to stop loving each other. So I marched, because I believe in a future where there is no more hate in the world.
Sierra Dawn, Write On 