Sunday, November 16, 2008

Bad news for the Yes on 8 voters

I had another epiphany a few days ago about gay marriage, and it's extremely bad news for anyone against gay marriage in America...

A gay marriage ban is inherently discriminatory and—because the American constitution is based on total equality—gay marriage bans will eventually be ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. It's just a question of when.

Maybe it won't happen with the current Supreme Court, but it will happen. It has to.

So, bad news for everyone who voted "Yes" on Prop 8 this year: like all the male chauvinists who lost when women were granted suffrage, and like all the racists who lost when blacks were granted civil rights, you're also going to lose on this issue. Why? Because you can't stop progress. Some traditions become extinct because they ought to become extinct, and this is one tradition which deserves to die.

What drives me crazy about the Yes on 8 crowd is their oft-heralded refrain, the so-called "activist" judges. I have no tolerance for that nonsense—judges are lawyers who've been through law school, who preside over countless cases to rule fairly, and are best prepared to interpret what equality and fairness means in our constitution. If a judge deems a practice unfair, and an appeals judge agrees with him, it's time to STFU and move on.

On a side note, I continue to be amazed how some Christians, normally a group promoting equality and goodness towards all, are on the wrong side of history about this issue. Then again, Christians did start the crusades, among other perversions of the Christian teachings. I wonder if a Christian sect ever rationalized slavery due to the rules set up for it in the Bible (Exodus 21:7)?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, a small Christian sect called the Catholic Church actually approved, blessed and profited from slavery until mid 19th century, when -given the raising power slavery in the new world was giving Spain and Portugal- it declared it a sin.

I agree with your reasoning, this discrimination will eventually be erased by progress, but we need to make sure that we preserve history and thought about these issues (i got scared by googling catholic church and slavery and seeing how the first 5 pages are mostly results from catholic revisionistic websites). We cannot just wait and see.

Oh, and on the judges, it is true that they are the best equipped for making those decisions, but they're also humans and as such partisan and fallible. As you point out, THIS supreme court will probably not clarify the constitution to explicitly include sexual orientation discrimination -as humans, we process a limited amount of information, and most of our decisions are preconceived.

Keep the discussions and the thoughts flowing !