A decision I have been awaiting, for almost two years, was finally handed down today in San Francisco. Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8, passed in California in November of 2008 was an unconstitutional law. Proposition 8 for those who are not familiar was a banned placed on same-sex marriage. Basically, the law said that marriage can only exist between a man and woman, therefore, gay couples could not ever obtain a legal marriage in California.
The American Foundation For Equal Rights posted the following to their Facebook page today:
Federal court: Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.
The totality of the argument posed by those in favor of Prop 8 was a moral argument. Clearly, not one that was to be dealt with in our legal system. If there is to be a clearly defined separation between church and state, which there has to be if religious freedom is to be protected, then how can such a law exist?
Who says that marriage is strictly between a man and woman? I believe that has only been defined through RELIGION. Plenty of straight couples that do not believe in any religion can easily go down to their local justice of the peace and get a LEGAL MARRIAGE under our law. LGBT couples are not seeking to force churches to recognize and marry them; they merely are asking for that same legal privilege.
Under the current laws of our nation, there is nothing protecting the rights of LGBT couples. A couple can be monogamous and truly be in love for a lifetime, yet, due to their lack of a legal marriage, one partner could be dying in the hospital and the other could be denied the right to see them. (If the family of the dying partner so chooses.) For a straight couple this could easily be avoided by getting married; Gay and Lesbian couples do not have that choice. They cannot be protected under the law. Essentially they are considered invalid, unimportant, unequal.
We would like to believe that: "America is the land of the free and the home of the brave". However, our country has a history rich with discrimination and institutionalized prejudice that would render that statement false. Thankfully, our nation has tried to reconcile these wrongs over time, but every change has come slowly. It took us almost a century to overturn slavery via the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. Another century to end segregation when the Supreme Court finally ruled all forms of segregation unconstitutional in 1968. There was the Trail of Tears that forced thousands of Native Americans to be moved from their homelands in the 1830s. Of 15,000 Cherokee that were relocated over 4,000 died on the way from their homeland to barren Oklahoma. To this day, in 2010, there has been no formal apology, let alone reparations made to the Cherokee nation. And we cannot forget the internment of over 100,000 AMERICANS during World War II, in the name of "our protection". It took another 30 years for our government to formally recognize it had violated the rights of its own citizens.
Now it is time to correct such wrongs against non-heterosexuals. It is time to truly live by our nations creed, stated so beautifully in the Declaration of Independence, on July 4th, 1776, by our founding fathers:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The fight is by no means over. Those people who believe that morality, which is of course subjective, should govern law and that human rights do not hold precedence, will of course be taking the fight all the way to the Supreme Court through the appeals process of this GREAT NATION. We must continue to show that America is truly a free nation and treats all of its citizens equally. Let's show that we support our brothers and sisters. You don't have to agree with someone to tolerate them and to allow them to exist freely. Let's end this ridiculous discrimination of Americans, now.
Support equality! Deny h8!!!
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