Tuesday, May 26, 2009

How is marriage not a fundamental right?



Today marks a sad day in a long line of sad days for same-sex couples in California, who have been given the right to marry and then had it taken away more times then I would like to count at this point. Unlike the multiple other states who within the past year have passed same-sex marriage laws (holla Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and the other states that are on their way), California has now been set back yet again due to its sometimes preposterous proposition process. The hearing today was not on the legality of same-sex marriage itself, but instead about the idea that Prop. 8 was not an amendment to the California constitution, but instead a revision of it. There are arguments for both sides of this case, but for me it really does come down to a fundamental issue of equal rights (which are very clearly written into the CA Constitution). While it can be said that same-sex couples in CA have all of the legal rights of opposite-sex couples given their rights to civil unions, they are still lacking the actual right to "marriage". Yes, it all comes down to a word. As Shannon Minter, an attorney for plaintiffs, stated, that without the right to the word “marriage,” same-sex couples in CA find their "outsider status enshrined in [the California] Constitution.” Is it really fair to say that same-sex couples are truly being given the same rights as opposite-sex couples when they don't have the right to the word "marriage"? and should that type of discrimination be written into the California Constitution? I think not!

NYT Article

SF Chronicle Article

1 comment:

hotpants said...

separate but not equal, eh?

i was all set to give the cali judges some credit... this lawsuit was given long shot given what the issue brought to court was (see nyt article), and i was thinking that maybe this ruling was true to the letter of the law and maybe little could be done. but, after reading about it more, it is clear that it w/i their power to rule the other way.

here's hoping for better days for gay rights in the future.