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Loading ...Should gay marriage remain a states issue?
05.28.2009 12:25pm EDT
(San Francisco, California) California’s status as a guardian of gay rights slipped this week when its highest court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, even as other states extended the institution to gay couples.
“Are the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire more sexually literate than Californians?” asked the National Sexuality Resource Center, a San Francisco-based think tank, naming the states where gays can or soon will be able to wed.The California Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, in a state that’s home to 14 percent of the nation’s same-sex couples and was the first to offer gays the spousal rights of marriage without being ordered to by a court.
Voters in 2008 passed the constitutional amendment, which trumped an earlier state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
In spite of the setback in the state, gay rights advocates say they still believe what happens there is important no matter the outcome. Supporters and opponents spent $83 million on the Proposition 8 campaign last year, making it the most expensive election on a social issue in the nation’s history.
“Certainly California remains very important in this epic struggle just because it’s so big,” said Richard Socarides, who served as President Bill Clinton’s adviser on gay civil rights.
And because of its size, gay rights advocates say they’ll continue their campaign to win over more voters. Leaders of Equality California and Courage Campaign said they have started canvassing in more conservative parts of the state, working with religious and ethnic groups and otherwise learning from mistakes made during last year’s failed campaign.
“The biggest thing California can do is win back marriage at the ballot box,” said Mary Bonauto, the civil rights director of Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which brought the lawsuit that led to Massachusetts becoming the first state to sanction same-sex marriage.
“We have won marriage in courts, we have even now marriage winning in legislatures,” she said. “To win it with the people would crumble the right wing’s whole house of cards.”
Bonauto said that if California advocates succeeded in getting Proposition 8 reversed, it would mark an unprecedented milestone: 28 other states have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage but none have been challenged with a popular vote.
As California gay rights groups prepared to launch a campaign to repeal Proposition 8 at the ballot box next year, two lawyers announced Tuesday they had filed a federal lawsuit challenging the initiative in the hopes of getting the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who represented opposing sides in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election challenge, said they think the high court is ripe to take on the issue. They filed on behalf of two gay men and two gay women.
“I felt it was very important we present the American people and the courts a unified front and tell the courts and the American people through our presence and our participation this is not about right or left or partisan politics,” Olson said. “This is about what we all share as Americans.”
But it wasn’t a move welcomed by all advocates. Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the suit “sends a powerful message that the time for change has come,” but also warned the lawyers of the “only one shot at the U.S. Supreme Court.”
They and “any attorneys bringing a case that will affect the freedom and legal status of an entire community bear a very heavy responsibility to be certain they have fully considered the consequences,” Minter said.
Gay rights activists also were pressuring President Barack Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge to work toward repealing the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act. The law prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.
The focus, however, remained on working though state legislatures and voters to win marriage rights, said Evan Wolfson, executive director of New York-based Freedom to Marry.
“Winning marriage in more states is crucial not only for the families living in those states, but for creating a comfort level that sets the stage for a national resolution,” he said.
we lost the vote from subliminal advertisement a trick the mormans know all to well.I say we need to fight fire with fire in this case! Ofcourse they dont want use to marry to them marriage is betreen an old man & a child!
I know because they came knocking on my door when I was 12 & I had to run away before they took me to one of there secret compounds!just like the battle which allowed blacks to marry who they wanted we have are on kkk to battle except these raciest eletist pigs have endless cash flow with billions of dollors in secret vaults to pull from!
Call me impatient, just bring on the federal battle! I’m tired of my ’separate but equal’ status, and I’m even more tired of the people who think I should settle for that.
More here: http://www.pimpmywry.com/2009/05/the-supreme-gay-mission.html
I compare this early stab at the Supreme court to the first failed attempt to overturn the sodomy statutes. The assertion that there is only “one shot” at the Supreme Court is false.
One might argue that the original Supreme Court decision on sodomy was a setback. I think it more likely it created the impetus for the later reversal of decision. As time marched on, society changed, and the Supremes sang a different song.
With Gay Marriage, it is quite likely this time the Supremes will sing a dirge, no matter what arguments are presented. If states keep enabling Gay marriage, a time will come when the whole house of cards will fall. The Supremes will find themselves in a complicated inter-state muddle affecting children, siblings, and parents of married Gay couples. They will have no choice to step in a “unify” the marriage system across state lines, much as they did with interracial marriage.
Finally, I repeat my assertion that rights gained through the ballot box are no rights at all, but privileges. What the ballot box giveth, the ballot box can taketh away. In the end, Gay marriage will only be a hard-won reality when we have a constitutional decision that to deny it violates equal protection.
Granted, that decision may have to come AFTER the privilege is won at the ballot box, at least in a substantial plurality of states.
I have to wonder if what is going on with gaining equality rights in the United States is not a reflection of what happened in Canada a few short years ago. In 2003 the Province of Ontario was the first jurisdiction in the country to legalize Gay marriage through a court order. Soon after, the Province of British Columbia followed suit and within two years most Provinces, except Alberta and one other Province had legalized the practice. In 2005 the Federal Government was basically left with no further options but to legalize equal marriage through Bill C38. It will be interesting if the United States of America follows the same pattern!
To Editor:
Do not get tooo exited yet – New Hampshire has “NOT” legalized SSM yet!!!!!!!! – Please get the facts right.
No it should be a nation issue !!! let no man think they are better than any other because of their sexual gender or the color of their skin.
I do not think it is a state issue when it comes to gay marriage. The whole country should approve gay marriage and let gays and lesbians to get married…
With marriage for same-sex couples now legal in Quebec, gay and lesbian couples want to know how to get married in that province.
Come to Montreal and get married guys… Montreal is a great city to visit and you can find everything about Montreal at http://www.montrealgaylistings.com – a Montreal Gay Travel Guide.
Love!
I just feel like it’s so degrading that we “need” to win over the hearts and minds of America to be able to marry the person of our choice…I don’t even want my parents to have a say in that choice. This country claims to be the land of the free…with the inaliable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…America…put up or shut up! At least if the USSC rules that Gay Americans are not deserving of equal rights…we can expose the fact that our country’s founding principals are crap. The hypocrisy makes me want my head to explode!
Thank you Steve Gay Activist of VT – pls. send your Senator Campbell over to NH, we need the assistance! The state is tangled up in legislative ego battles and Maine is about to face its own version of Prop 8. We need to keep NH and ME and win CA by ballot. CA was so close it really could be possible in the very near future. I agree with the quote in the article – a win by ballot would be the coup we’re looking for. Losing these three states would be devastating.
Civil rights as a state by state basis isn’t going to work. I find myself asking if this same discussion was happening when the African American community was fighting for their civil rights. In the end, the AA community’s civil rights ended up a national issue, and that is the only way it can be for the gay community.
Simply put, the gay community is in the same position as the AA community was many years ago. As a rule, American’s are unwilling to learn from the past. The big difference is that you can’t pick out a gay person from across the room.
It is not our PASSION to have our Federally guaranteed civil rights acknowledged and enforced that has led to same-sex marriage bans in most states, it is the ignorance of most American citizens, the “tyranny of the majority,” against which the 14th Amendment protects the equal rights of the minority.
i still say it should be decided as a whole country thing,civil marraige is granted by states and reconized by the federal goverment as a civil right by 2 people who joined together i dont recall the constituition saying well only if your strait or religious you can marry or only if your a citizen of this country so lets get it done and move on.
My life and my rights should never be put up for the state to decide. The majority should not be allowed to keep me back because of ignorance and bigotry.
I have a hard time understanding why civil rights issues should be put to referenda of any kind. Why should voters have a say in who gets what, some more than others? Currently, I think state legislatures and state supreme courts should be the vehicles to do that without any ballot intiatives or constitutional revisions being permitted. Connecticut managed to do just that.
It will be a slower process but does anyone really believe that taking this to the federal court or SCOTUS that we’ll get anywhere? The SCOTUS is already stacked with 5 catholics plus one more when Sotomayor is confirmed and she has agreed with republicans 95% of the time, so what does that say about her? Nobody knows where she stands on equality issues and I’m amazed nobody has asked her. I’m beyond uneasy about this nomination.
No, it should not remain at the state level. State and church are supposed to be seperate, then how come it really is not. I hope our founding fathers are not watching this cause they would be spinning in their graves….