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Marriage Equality

Marriage Equality

Today was a monumental victory for all Americans, even those who believed (and continue to believe) that marriage equality somehow erodes the sanctity of that union. The fact is, extending the right to marry to all couples nationwide is a vindication of that union. And our Union today is stronger for it.

americaFrom Justice Kennedy, what will surely become some of the most enduring words in the history of the Supreme Court:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

I haven’t posted in a long time because I’ve been busy. Busy with work, busy with life. Being busy sometimes tricks you into believing there are no bigger causes to care about than your own petty concerns. This is one of them. As someone who has advocated for marriage equality for a very long time, I am very proud to be an American today.

To my gay friends, family, and neighbors: congratulations. This is your day. But this is also a day for America. Today was one of those rare days in American history that we will look back upon and say: “that day, we all became more free.”

June 26, 2015Comments are DisabledRead More
On Same-Sex Marriage

On Same-Sex Marriage

I was at the first same-sex civil union performed in Connecticut, and for that I consider myself privileged. After the brides slowly walked down the aisle to the altar, the Unitarian pastor performing the ceremony told us, through tears, that they symbolically took their time getting to the altar because it has taken them a long, long time to be able to get married. For a couple that had been together for more than 20 years, and had each spent a lifetime fighting for their right to get married, it was about bloody time they were allowed to openly, proudly declare their love for one another and have that love recognized by the state.

enhanced-buzz-21299-1355130638-5That was in 2005. It would still be three more years before Connecticut became only the third state to enact same-sex marriage legislation. Other states followed suit, but not without problems. In 2008, California’s infamous Prop 8 banned same-sex marriage in my current home state, rolling back a right that had been granted to gay couples previously, and prompting a litany of suits that have now reached the Supreme Court. But even in 2005, although it was still an uphill battle for millions of gay couples in the United States, it wasn’t unthinkable that the nation was at a tipping point. In just seven years’ time, a blink of the eye in legislative terms, nine states now allow same-sex couples to marry, with the first to allow it by popular vote in the last election. The president of the United States, for the first time, publicly acknowledged his support of the issue. Multiple Republicans and GOP insiders have acknowledged that there is little they can do about the eventual legalization of same sex marriage nationally. And in a stunning symbolic blow to the sadomasochistic social conservative movement, conservative-turned-libertarian Glen Beck is joining Bill O’Reilly and the ranks of the right who finally acknowledge that small-government conservatism means the government should stay out of love as well.

Pictures of couples marking their 40 years of commitment to each other with wedding rings say more about the necessity of righting this fundamental injustice nationally than I ever could, but it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on how we got here, and just how important this is to the nation. There are people today who still remember when “miscegenation” was illegal, and when blacks couldn’t marry whites. Hell, there are people today who were around when women first got the right to vote. It is a painful legacy of our history that only until recently have all people, of all kinds, truly been a part of the national project. And nothing is more odious than the interjection of government power into private lives of citizens (if you ask me, we’re going in the wrong direction: we should be ending government involvement in marriage altogether). But especially when sex and love have been used by countless regimes in history to drive wedges between people of different races and faiths (especially where religion is concerned), it has finally become somewhat of a banality at this point to stand up and declare openly, “I can love who I want and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

enhanced-buzz-13310-1355130194-9I could say a lot about this, particularly about South Africa which went from apartheid’s strict regulations on sex and marriage to full-blown marriage equality within 20 years, but it is amazing how steadfastly civil liberties can be protected as long as people keep speaking out for them. For there are plenty of people who would like this “sin” to be punishable by death. There are plenty of people who would like to see gays “cured” by the state, or see religion in general imposed upon children in classrooms. And, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of our friends on the left who would like to tell people what foods they can eat, or what lightbulbs they can use, or what is appropriate to say and in which fora. There will always be people who believe they have a right not to be offended by someone else’s personal choices and beliefs, and they will work to take away our rights in turn.

The test of the immutability of the right to marriage is not whether it becomes national law in 5 years, but whether in 30 years, or 50 years, people take it for granted, the way I fear many people today take their right to a fair trial for granted. Whether people realize how difficult it was to acquire these rights, there are always sinister forces looking to defeat them. We must be vigilant and continue to fight to protect our natural rights, rights that should and will belong to us even if our universe has been clouded with totalitarianism.

The wedding bells today in Washington are a welcome sound to all who can hear them. And may they soon ring out in Mississippi and Georgia and Idaho. And may they soon ring out in Indonesia and Iran and Uganda. And when they do, let us not forget how hard it is to gain our rights, and never fail to protect them.


As an aside: if you are a supporter of gay rights, but also believe in conservative ideals like small government, free minds and free markets, I recommend donating to GOProud, an conservative gay rights organization that supports states’ rights (that wonderful feature of federalism that has allowed gay couples to get married all across America even while many people oppose it). Whereas they are a little controversial on their narrow line on same-sex marriage, they get points for fighting discrimination and pushing for more acceptance in the conservative movement.

December 11, 2012Comments are DisabledRead More
What Really Matters after 2012

What Really Matters after 2012

Barack Obama won. I won’t be enthusiastic, but I won’t be hateful, either. He was a better candidate with a better argument. The voters chose. Mitt Romney was an awful alternative. And, truth be told, I didn’t vote for either one. Quite clearly, my cynicism has evolved greatly since 2008.

Where do we go from here? There will be more elections, and more bitter contests. Although most people claim to belong to one party or another, I believe that all people have a soft spot for that one thing that matters more than anything else: our freedom. So here’s what I’m looking for in any candidate I support for any election in the future, regardless of party. I’m looking for candidates who support:

  • Freedom to choose whom I marry
  • Freedom to choose whom I work for and in what profession
  • Freedom to invest and save my wages as I please
  • Freedom for parents to choose schools for their children
  • Freedom for parents to pass their money onto their children
  • Freedom to make decisions about my health, both positive and negative
  • Freedom to vote without preconditions
  • Freedom to trade with foreign companies without penalty
  • Freedom to sell my labor for as much or as little as I am able
  • Freedom to sell any product or service I can provide for which there is a willing buyer
  • Freedom to believe in any god or no god at all

With this very simple metric, I will be able to tell which candidates deserve my vote in the future, and which candidates don’t. I don’t care about identity or politics, I only care about the odds for liberty.

Right now, the odds look a little better, with sweeping changes in four states in favor of gay marriage, and two states overturning marijuana prohibition. On the other hand, the bailouts of Wall Street and the auto industry just got a rousing endorsement. It will be hard to predict the next four years, but one thing you can count on after this generation demonstrated where it stands on social issues: the freedoms above are not unattainable. They just will require some work.

Congratulations, President Obama. Time to get moving.

November 7, 2012Comments are DisabledRead More
Moving Forward

Moving Forward

Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decided that Proposition 8 to the California constitution violated the United States constitution.  This decision marks one more step in the historic–and seemingly endless–march for gay rights in the United States and the world.

California has long been a center of gay activism and progress in the area of gay rights.  San Francisco was the first city to elect an openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, in 1978.  In that year, California’s Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, which would have prevented gays and lesbians from working in the school system, was defeated.  However, gay marriage was still not valid or recognized in California.  In 2000, California passed Proposition 22 which constitutionally defined marriage as being only between a man and a woman.  In 2008, the Supreme Court of California overturned this amendment, legalizing gay marriage in California for several months until the November election, when Proposition 8 was passed which overturned the court’s decision.

Time and time again, the courts have upheld the rights of homosexual couples to marry, and time and time again, populist movements have put an end to this basic human freedom.  Today, a Federal judge issued an invalidating ruling, meaning that in California, for the time being, the only hope for defeating gay rights is in the Supreme Court.  (For you constitutional purists out there, the reason we have courts in the first place is to provide guidance on law and prevent unjust laws when we don’t know any better.)

Today California once again joins the ranks of the few states in America that extend this privilege to homosexual couples:  Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Washington, DC, New Hampshire and Vermont.  We will see soon if the Supreme Court upholds today’s ruling.  In my opinion, there is no valid argument–constitutional, moral, religious, or otherwise–against allowing homosexuals to marry to the fullest extent of equal protection under United States federal law. The only valid constitutional argument from a Federalist perspective is the separation of powers and the States rights doctrine.  This is certainly a valid argument to make, but keep in mind that if the Supreme Court had consistently strictly upheld the States rights doctrine when it came to matters of equality, segregation would still be legal.  Interracial marriage would still be illegal.  Plus, we have the Fourteenth Amendment for a reason!

It is important for Americans of all races, religions and orientations to remember that our ancestors also faced opposition to their basic human rights and freedoms.  Indeed, the past four hundred years of history in America has been a story of groups gradually winning the right to be viewed as equals.  In the struggle for gay rights, we see a similar endurance and persistence that has occupied every civil rights movement in our history.  The same endurance that led blacks to freedom, that led women to the ballot box and that even led Jews to Israel.  There is no doubt that, like these movements of the past, the movement for gay and lesbian rights in America will succeed.  The decision today in California is a vital step on the road to justice.  The more the opponents of this movement try to hold the country back, the louder its drive for justice, and the sweeter the victory.

It is easy for Americans to forget, being as secure we are in our citizenship and our persons, how hard it was for our parents and grandparents to fight so it could be this way.  Think about the progress we have made as a nation in just the last century–but also think about how much further we have to go, not just in terms of gay rights but in terms of many basic human rights, worldwide, that we take for granted.

If you are interested in the legal thought going into today’s decision, check out the text of the ruling here (http://scr.bi/awBcpr).  There is also a great article by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Ted Olson, in Newsweek called “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” (http://bit.ly/9ZYdU4).  Olson explains quite eloquently that the fight for gay rights is not just a gay issue or a liberal issue, but an American issue.

August 4, 2010Comments are DisabledRead More