Freedom and Equality for All

So it's been well over a month since the federal judge threw out Proposition 8 in California, the voter-approved referendum that forbade homosexuals from marriage. I apologize for not responding to it sooner but one of the beauties of having this blog is if everyone's talking about gay marriage and I want to talk about, say, celery... I talk about celery. I feel no impulse to be one of the first to opine about something, but I do want to talk about the ruling and its aftermath, so here goes.

First of all, I'm okay with gay marriage, and I'll put aside all the obligatory "why shouldn't they be just as miserable as the rest of us" and all the other ha-ha jokes that go with it. Love is love, regardless of who it is, and don't even start with me on the "slippery slope" routine. We are NEVER going to legalize marrying your sheep... no matter how much the Scots want it to happen. Ba dum bum. Alright, seriously done with the one-liners now. I truly believe that people don't choose to become homosexuals, they're not "recruited" by reading books and listening to their out-and-proud friends, they are born that way and there have been homosexuals all throughout history... it's just that the historians had done a pretty good job of whitewashing all of that up until recently. To each his own, live and let live. I'll do my thing searching for the right woman, you do your thing searching for the right man or woman, regardless of what gender you happen to be.

But of course there is a portion of the country who disapproves of homosexuals getting any equal recognition whatsoever. They portray homosexual males in one breath as effete, less-than-men, and in the next breath as having voracious sexual appetites and out to get with any man in their path. Incidentally, these portrayals often used to be applied (and sadly, in some cases, still are applied) to African-Americans. And of course, those who disapprove of the "lifestyle" will direct you to the Bible... while ignoring the lines about killing people who eat shellfish and the lines about beating your slaves that used to be referred to in order to justify both slavery and every other oppression of minorities.

Not to get all academic-y on you, but I am studying the works and philosophies of Jurgen Habermas, and he just gets it, and he certainly does on the place of religion in our public debate. It's okay for you to believe what you believe, and it's okay for you to have opinions on issues because they are consistent with your religious beliefs... but to enter a debate on the issue for the purposes of letting those in power know how you feel, you have to leave your Bible AT HOME. You have to translate it into a secular argument befitting of our secular system of government (referring you back to last week's entry).

And so it is that in a debate about any issue, be it gay marriage, abortion, what-have-you, the moment I see someone using Bible verses to justify their position, I tune out. Anyway, I bring that up because that, among other things was used by Cal Thomas to reject the ruling of federal Judge Vaughn Walker in his column mere days afterward. I do not often agree with Cal Thomas, he's one of these types who has gone straight overboard since 9/11, one of these right-wingers who think that all Muslims are potential terrorists, and certainly one who does not believe that homosexuals have a right to exist, much less marry. I don't get offended easily, but in the space of a mere couple of paragraphs, he managed to offend me SEVERAL times.

Thomas declared that Walker was openly gay (I mean he must be, he ruled in favor of gay marriage) when no evidence exists to support that. He related this ruling to the constitutional right to an abortion found in Roe v. Wade (ah, the single issue voter, able to connect ANY news story to abortion). He claimed that Walker struck down the will of 7 million Californians... yeah, he's allowed to do that, it's called "judicial review", goes all the way back to 1803. And then, of course, Thomas declared that this one judge overturned biblical fiat. Except, as I mentioned last week, this country does not operate based on the Bible. It operates based on the Constitution, which declares a separation of church and state. Thomas went on to pretty much play the role of Pat Robertson and declare that our unraveling morals since the advent of Playboy in the 1950s are why the terrorists will ultimately defeat us, and of course he quoted numerous Bible verses through the rest of his rant. I imagine Mr. Thomas would not be a fan of Jurgen Habermas.

So now we have people appealing Judge Walker's ruling because they feel he was not impartial and used the wrong legal reasoning to come up with his ruling. Let's just call it what it is... they're protesting him because they think he's gay. And if he is, what the hell difference does that make? Apparently a judge from a minority group cannot be trusted to rule partially in a case involving his group... except 20 years ago when President Reagan appointed him to the appellate bench (yeah he was a Reagan appointee... pretty sure that wouldn't have happened if he was, indeed, gay), one Nancy Pelosi held up his appointment because, among other things, he was perceived as insensitive to... HOMOSEXUALS. Forty years ago, it would have been a protest against a judge because he was black, before that it would be protesting a woman judge. One hopes that this is the last major barrier of discrimination we have to get through as a society.

As far as the ruling goes, it was right on the money. It does indeed come down to the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendement, which makes no mention of sexual orientation. It refers to all Americans, and therefore, all must receive equal protection under the law. You say marriage is a "religious sacrament", then detach the legal requirements of a marriage license from the church pomp-and-circumstance. But again that would require all Americans to have the same thing, whether it's called a "marriage license" or a "domestic partnership". It would be a helluva lot easier to say marriage for everyone than try to explain to all the married heterosexuals why we can't legally call them married couples anymore but instead have to call them "domestic partners" (smacks of political correctness).

More and more Americans agree with this sentiment, which is why many think that if and when this goes to the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court will uphold Walker's ruling and legalize gay marriage. Time and tradition have shown that when a majority of people come around toward fair and equitable treatment for an oppressed group, the Court follows suit (most notably, Brown v. Board of Education). Of course, we'll still have people like Cal Thomas and the others who gathered at the Values Voter Summit last week, showing hypocrisy of the highest order. I mean, how you can scream about how we're losing our freedom and rights and then turn around and say homosexuals should have no rights or freedoms?

And the circus continues because the Senate is about to take up the revocation of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell", the military policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the armed forces. For all of the reasons I gave above, obviously this policy should go the way of Jim Crow laws. There is a good chance that 61 senators will get behind it to stop any chance of filibuster, even with Lady GaGa leading the political charge.

And then there was the story in the Sunday papers about the Montana GOP and their platform plank that reads "homosexuality should be illegal". Apparently, it's something few in the state's party really truly believe (and it wouldn't pass constitutional muster anyway), but they never bothered to confront the platform language and get rid of it. As ridiculous as this is, it's really nothing more than low-hanging fruit for left-wingers to grab a story like that and make you think that is emblematic of all Republicans. However, this question is a valid one: is it emblematic of MOST Republicans? And once again, how much do we want that element in the party? I had hoped that the Tea Party could be about the fiscal issues that matter most to us, that unite right-wingers with social liberals like myself. Then Jim DeMint declares that "You cannot be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal." Bullshit. You can be, lots of us are, and WE'RE who you are now calling "RINOs" and telling to get out of the party because we refuse to thump Bibles alongside you. And it's absolutely laughable when The Leader of the Republican Party continues to claim that it's really the RINOs who are in charge. Can you name any prominent Republican who believes in gay marriage, ending "don't ask/don't tell", and that you CAN be a fiscal conservative and social liberal, much less enough of them to make you believe that they're running the party?

All I can say is the tide is turning, and as is the case with any paradigm shift, you may just have to wait for enough of the older people who oppose gay rights to pass on and join their predecessors who believed in institutional racism and sexism. This isn't about religion, it's about government protecting its citizens equally. That's what freedom is really all about.