Margines: We need equality to realize progress
Margines: We need equality to realize progress
Friday, November 7, 2008
My love affair with my home state of California ended on Tuesday with the passing of Proposition 8, which rewrites the state constitution to define marriage as only the union between a man and a woman.
How did this happen? Basically, a bare majority of state residents used the proposition system to strip rights from a minority. To many of us, this minority is not just unknown people 3,000 miles from here; it is made up of our friends at home and at Yale who are now uncertain that they will be able to marry.
The arguments for and against gay marriage are well-defined and revolve around the definition of marriage and who has the right to define it. People on opposite sides of the gay marriage debate may never agree on what marriage is or should be.
But if the government is going to be involved in marriages, then legal marriage must be held to the same rigorous standard of equality as every other aspect of government. This is non-negotiable. We go to great lengths in this country to make sure that no group, minority or majority, is discriminated against. If the government recognizes two different categories of these relationships — marriages and civil unions — everyone must have an equal opportunity to belong to either.
Religious institutions are free to make arbitrary rules about which marriages they sanction, but the government is not. If one church wants to say they will not marry breast cancer survivors, tattooed gang-bangers or four-fingered lepers, fine. But for the government to take an equivalent position is a blatant crime against civil rights. What gay couple wants to be married in a church where they are not welcome, anyway? Let those who do not accept do so quietly, in their homes, just as marriage is a private affair.
Perhaps the government’s greatest purpose is to protect the inalienable rights of people. The principal point of the Bill of Rights is that citizens have rights, regardless of whether they are in the minority or in the majority. A watershed Supreme Court opinion elucidates this issue. In 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, outlawing interracial marriage. Forty-three years later, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the high court overturned that law, calling marriage one of the “basic civil rights of man.” After 1967, then, marriage was defined as between any man and any woman; the church of course did not have to marry or recognize any couple that they did not want to, but the state would recognize that right.
Since then, marriage has been understood as a basic civil right, but somehow a group of religious people with enough money collected enough signatures to place the issue on the November ballot. (If you think I exaggerate, here are some data: the Mormon Church donated $20 million to the cause, and New Haven’s own Knights of Columbus donated $1.25 million.) I would bet I am not alone in wishing Mormons would stop knocking on my door to convert me, but I wouldn’t dream of trying to abolish their religion.
Marriage is as much a “civil right of man” as religion. Simply because a majority of people don’t believe in same-sex marriage does not mean that those who do should be barred from practicing their beliefs. Doing so is an inalienable right.
What happened this past Tuesday is appalling. That Proposition 8 was even allowed to be on the ballot, let alone be passed, is a terrible case of the tyranny of the majority. This was a vote to take away a right. A more numerous group should never be able to take a basic right from a smaller set of people.
By condemning same-sex couples to relationships that are less special than opposite-sex ones, the people of California have made friends of mine wonder if their neighbors think they should not be able to marry their partners.
We have come a long way in this country, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Movement, to having the nation’s first black president. Gay rights are the next frontier of civil rights, and it is a travesty that the great state of California is not leading the way.
Ben Margines is a junior in Saybrook College.
Comments
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Sorry grammar error:
Dean should be Dear
The second sentence of the second paragraph should read: "One of the major reasons the Mormon Church and its adherents supported and financed the proposition is because they were afraid that if gay marriage remained legal, the Church would be endanger of losing its tax exempt status if it did not agree to perform same-sex marriages."
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Dean Ben,
I missed the part where the right to marriage was included in the constitution.
I also think there is an important part of Proposition 8 you are missing. One of the major reasons the Mormon Church and its adherents supported and financed the proposition is because they were afraid that if it passed, the Church would be endanger of losing its tax exempt status if it did not agree to perform same-sex marriages. In addition, there were concerns over whether or not public schools would introduce children to the concept of same-sex marriage at a young age if it was legal (for example see the first graders at a same-sex wedding in San Francisco controversy). It really wasn't a matter of a majority oppressing the minority. Many people who voted for this proposition were trying to protect their own private interests from state encroachment. And who can blame them for that? After all, the right to religious freedom is protected by the constitution, where as the right to marriage is not.
Also, commenter 5, you missed the part where opponents of the proposition raised $2m more than the proponents.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Dear Ben,
Don't take this letter the wrong way. I think gays should be able to marry. But had I been a Californian (thankfully I'm not), I would have voted Yes on Prop 8. And I am only more and more sure about this the more histrionic facebook notes and overwrought opinion pieces I read on this issue.
The issue for me is not gay marriage in and of itself. That's secondary. I would have been forced to undo the travesty of the California Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage by judicial fiat.
See, I'm one of those people who thinks a Constitution says what it says, not what you want it to say. And there's nothing in the State Constitution (or the US's) that gives credence to the view that gay marriage should be legal.
In that sense, gay marriage is not a "inalienable right". It's something at which society collectively arrives. You think that the constitution simply says whatever you want it to say. This is a wrongheaded view - rules are rules and not guidelines for a very specific reason: to guard against tyranny. We cannot allow judges to rule by fiat by inventing laws that don't exist. The legal ground on which they've made their case is suspect (under their legal "reasoning", we should also allow marriages based on polygamy and incest [I'm not saying they're morally equivalent I'm just saying that's where the legal reasoning leads]). The point is - there's no solid legal reasoning to justify the judicial activism that took place.
THAT'S what the debate's really about.
I'm just clarifying because it was, after all, the left wing that demonized legitimate discourse on the issue of gay marriage. People like you, Ben, have made your political opponents into your mortal enemies. You've demonized Mormons in your piece, anti-Prop8 protesters have hurled racial epithets at minorities, and - between the lot of you - collectively called everyone who didn't support Prop 8 a homophobic bigot.
Good luck with that tactic. I'm sure it'll work wonders.
Sincerely, A friend of yours
PS: Freedom of religion is enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution and Article 1, Section 4 of the California State Constitution. Get your dad to point it out to you sometime. Then ask him where there's any mention of 'marriage rights' in either.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
You said it Ben! Why do the religious fundamentalists among us want to get involved in the psychological Menage a trois of bossing people around in their love lives?
To them I say: Return to your missionary position and let everybody else enjoy the splendor of living authentically!
None 3 years, 6 months ago
By my penny,
It is really terrible that marriage has turned into such a disrespected and disreputable institution.
Here's the thing though - this train is only going to go forward, not backwards. Where, Penny, would you even want to see the institution restored to? 10 years back? When Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman were showing people how they regarded marriage? 50 years back, when their marriage would not have even been recognized by the state of VA because they were different races? Or maybe 150 years back? When the government wasn't really recognizing the rights of African Americans, who (presumably) you now understand have the same rights as you do?
I agree that it is unpleasant for change to happen because we don't know all of its ramifications. We do know what was wrong with the past though, and to choose that over what we have now is just backwards.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Dropping By, Let's be straight here--no pun intended--and look carefully at the Mormon Church. It's an organization known for its discipline and control over its members (not that other churches aren't, but bear with me), and Mormons are expected to donate time and money to the church and its causes. Not requested--expected. There's essentially no parallel here, however hard to you strain the facts to make it look that way. The civil institution of marriage should never rightly have anything to do with the religious one; to claim this as a religious issue is a fundamental misinterpretation of how government works in this country.
That said, comparing this to Obama's fundraising, whose goal was never to strip Americans of their rights, is disingenuous and flat-out stupid.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Congratulations on a well-written article. As a resident of California, I am sickened to see my state's Constitution changed to take away the rights of one group of people. I thought I lived in a country where people had a guarantee of equal rights.
It's so wrong it boggles the mind. As Spherical Cow points out, equal rights for gay couples is on its way. Proposition 8 is just a bump in the road, very much like a dead and rotting skunk. We may slow down a little as we drive over it, but it won't stop us. And in the end, the stench will be nothing more than an unpleasant memory.
I've also written about Prop 8, though before the election was held. You can read my article here: http://hubpages.com/hub/Taking-Down-the-Straight-Only-Sign It focuses on the way marriage has evolved over time.
Thanks for telling it like it is.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Marriage is not a basic civil right (if it were, Greg and Marcia could have married). And it is not simply the "religious" who realize this (Dude, like, ESPECIALLY in moonbat Cali, an overwhelmingly Obama state: you thinkin' the home folks are, like, religious? Duuuuuude!)
None 3 years, 6 months ago
Yes, Hieronymous, actually we do. The Californians who voted Yes on Prop 8 were likely more religious than those who voted No by a significant margin. And, as the exit polls proved, they were older. Take a look at the exit polls; they are very interesting.
You, and we, can see the writing on the wall, when the younger generation votes overwhelmingly against this shameful bigotry. History will, as it did with anti-miscegenation laws, make this debate and propostiion look like the rear-guard action that it is.
But, hey, you all are conservatives. As Buckley said, it's your job to stand athwart History yelling "Stop!"
Too bad, this train is moving.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormon") did not, contra your ramble, donate one thin dime to Prop 8. It asked its members to become politically involved, and those individual citizens coughed up $20 million or so because they passionately believe in traditional marriage. Remember back, oh, say, 3 days or so when Barack Obama was a candidate for president? He raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign, because individual citizens were excited and inspired by his values. Remember when that was a good thing?
You need to (1) get your facts straight, and (2) lose the double standards.
None 3 years, 6 months ago
..And Churches were marrying inter-racial couples long before Loving, dear. It's not about civil rights, its about protecting a sacred institution that has the ability to generate life.
The fact that people take marriage lightly and divorce only years, months after they marry only helps the cause for those trying to frame it as a purely civil right - which its not.
We've lost perspective on what marriage is, that's true. We've taken our vows lightly, that's true. But just because we have scorned the institution doesn't mean we can just change it.
The institution of marriage and its raison d'etre is already becoming more and more unrecognizable - we need to restore it, not change it. And that's the way we fix society.
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