CNN remembers:

In its May 15 ruling legalizing gay marriage in California, the [California Supreme Court] justices seemed to signal that a ballot initiative like Proposition 8 might not be enough to change the underlying constitutional issues of the case in the court’s eyes.

The ruling said the right to marry is among a set of basic human rights “so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process.”

Enemies of individual freedom and religious liberty — including Mormon, Catholic, and Protestant religious-rightists — chose to ignore the human rights of fellow Californians. Through a campaign of outright lies and unethical activities, religious-right groups conned California voters into approving — by a narrow margin — Proposition 8, which by a simple majority vote nullified human rights and family values of an entire demographic minority of Californians.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, defenders of the freedom to marry contend that Proposition 8 used a ballot-initiative process which is legally restricted to minor changes to the state constitution. According to California law, changes of Proposition 8’s magnitude are supposed to be made only through a careful and deliberative legislative process.

Prop 8 replaced the freedom to marry with a sectarian religious ban that discriminated against the civil marriage and relationship rights of persons who choose not to adhere to the religious biases of one powerful voter bloc.

Today, according to CNN, the high court agreed to hear challenges to the constitutionality of Proposition 8. The case will not be heard before May 2009; until then, antifamily religious-rightists continue their efforts to nullify the pre-existing marriages of gay and lesbian couples.

Hat tip: All Facts and Opinion

By the Rev. Steven F. Kindle, Clergy United, Inc.

The question is not:  Will marriage survive the inclusion of non-heterosexuals into its mix?  Of course it will.  No, the appropriate question is:  Can America be America if it does not end its oppression of gay Americans?  Will we become a nation that is willing to endure second-class citizens after two centuries of steady emancipation of other oppressed groups? I suggest to you that America’s soul is at great risk by this moral failure.  This is a justice issue that needs to be addressed and resolved in favor of the oppressed.  Offering same-sex marriage is the final step in recognizing the full, unencumbered humanity of non-heterosexuals, and their inclusion as fully emancipated American citizens.

Historical progress toward equality

The history of the United States can be summarized, quite accurately, as the slow but sure realization of the vision of its founding document, the Declaration of Independence, that all are created equal.

The same founders who agreed that “All men are created equal” also said, “Slaves shall represent 3/5 of a human being.”  They and their successors also denied women the right to vote and upheld “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws, making interracial marriages illegal and restricted immigration to maintain white majority.

The founders had something in mind when they wrote the Constitution, but it’s not the republic in which we now live.  In fact, their prejudices went so deep that they didn’t even feel the need to write “all white, landed, protestant, heterosexual, free men are created equal.” Forget about their slaves, forget about women, forget about those without land, forget about gay people-the only ones who had the right to vote, and thus the right to participate in the building of this new republic were people exactly like them.

In the intervening years, slavery has been abolished, women have been fully emancipated and nonwhites have been given the full dignity of the law.  The inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans is now the realized dream of that distant day.

There is, however, one exception: non-heterosexual Americans, who are described by Harvard sociologist Byrne Fone as victims of the last acceptable bigotry in America.

It is my contention that withholding marriage rights for non-heterosexuals is unconstitutional, unchristian, and un-American.  I will make the case for same-sex marriage being beneficial to America by providing four bedrock reasons why same sex marriage rights deserve to be placed on par with heterosexual marriage rights.

1. Justice
2. Evolution of marriage
3. There’s no downside
4. Social stability

(Read More)