Currently, the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is considering altering their state Constitution to prevent gay couples from marrying, in defiance of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision requiring it. Massachusetts State Representative Byron Rushing delivered an eloquent oration decrying the denial of the rights to a group of people for the sake of expediency. During this debate, we have seen party lines break down and we have seen such a spectrum of opinion over what constitutes remedy for the injunction passed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
People have repeated turned to civil unions as a potential compromise position. This has some siren appeal, as it provides most of the civil benefits of marriage without the messy involvement with the term marriage. The state of Vermont heard that siren song, and were cheered for it. I firmly believe that such a compromise is no compromise at all.
On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Warren of the United States Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision in the case of Oliver Brown et al. vs. The Board of Education of Topeka (KS). This decision set aside the inherently discriminatory precedent set by Plessy vs. Ferguson of "separate but equal." In his opinion, he stated "The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws."
Civil unions as they are conceived in current law cannot be made equal to civil marriage for many reasons, including the fact that they do not have to be recognized by other states. They also do not provide critical economic benefits such as the right of survivorship. The boldness and the brazenness of the effort to deny homosexuals from this right of partnership in the face of not only the existence of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law, but also in the face of the watershed decision in Brown v. Board that established the doctrine that "separate but equal is inherently unequal" is both disgusting and disturbing.
But Massachusetts is not the only battleground for this fight. Legislation has been introduced into the U. S. House of Representatives beginning the process for amending the United States Constitution in order to forbid homosexuals from marrying. This step would mark the first time in our history that our foundational document has been modified in order to explicitly deny rights to a group of people. That we can have the temerity to call ourselves the Land of the Free and consider such an action is the height of hypocrisy.
Posted by brent at 18:18