If you find yourself supporting legal action to suppress gay rights, don’t worry8212;you are not the first group in America guilty of xenophobia.
The Constitution set in motion a future for everyone to be equal despite xenophobes’ best efforts. Whether Proposition 8 passes in California or not, same-sex couples will eventually achieve equality. The proposition and constitutional amendments like it will be deemed unconstitutional as the most accepted form of bigotry dies out of our population.
The public should not have the right to vote to deny a right to a minority, a scenario that occurred in Utah’s 2004 gay marriage ban and is taking place now with Proposition 8 in California. Utah’s eyes will be keeping a close watch on what happens in that vote since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is partially funding the campaign in favor of denying same-sex couples the right to marry.
Our slave-owning Founding Fathers wrote a constitution that made us all equal before the law, even though they, by some accident, denied women the right to vote. Equality should include all races, creeds, genders, sexual orientations and abilities. America slowly realized non-whites could vote, no matter how much racism remained among voters. Then America slowly realized women are equal, too, no matter how much sexism remained among voters.
Today, sexism and racism remain within the general public, but fortunately, voters don’t have the opportunity to revoke race or gender equality. Eventually, the Constitution will be defended and same-sex couples will have the right to marry, despite homophobes’ best efforts.
Homophobia is alive and well in the American general public, in populations as large and as vocal as racist and sexist populations used to be. Our constitution does not say all people are equal unless they are homosexual. Yet many heterosexuals are upset that someone else might gain the same right they have. This is no different than racists and sexist males who were upset when non-whites and women were granted the right to vote.
Defense for banning gay marriage often differentiates marriage as a privilege, not a right. Call it what you want, but that sounds to me like sitting on a bench that says, “Whites only” is a privilege and not a right.
Other defenses claim only heterosexual married couples have healthy families.
“The foundation of our society is that strong family, and that’s based on that traditional definition of marriage,” Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin said.
I don’t know what her definition of a strong family is, or the foundation of our society. Only Russia, along with the nations of Moldova, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and Aruba had higher divorce rates than the United States in 2004, according to a United Nations report and statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control.
Utah’s 2004 amendment defined marriage as “the legal union between a man and a woman. No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.”
Conservative author Cherilyn Bacon Eager said that the vote would “decide the future of our children.”
Indeed, it decides whether our gay children are considered equals before the law. If she is alluding to gay couples raising children, a person’s well-being and future has nothing to do with his or her parents’ or guardians’ gender. Some of the best parents I know are same-sex couples, including separated couples who share custody of children like so many divorced opposite-sex parents.
These propositions are Defense of Marriage Acts. Referring to these as acts of “defense” is ludicrous. Gay marriage bans only suppress people and defend no one. They protect xenophobes from accepting that same-sex couples are equal to them before the law. I cannot imagine a viable and unbigoted argument to the contrary.
Logan Campbell