It’s not surprising, after the votes last week it was only a matter of time before the laws would be challenged in state courts. Advocates in California have asked the California Supreme Court to consider their legal challenge on the California Gay Marriage Ban. The briefs filed with the court argue that banning gay couples from marrying violates the California constitution and they are requesting the justices address this immediately.
The appeals court in California upheld the law last month that restricts marriage to a union between a man and woman and offered the response that it is up to voters and the legislature to change the law and not the judges. The battle lines in California are not new; they were actually drawn more than two years ago when the mayor of San Francisco issued marriage licenses to thousands of same-sex couples. The Supreme Court intervened, but they did not rule on gay marriage. Their intervention was directly aimed at the mayor and indicated they believed he was overstepping his authority as mayor by issuing those licenses.
At that time, they invited a lawsuit to challenge the state law and it’s taken this long for the case to reach the State Supreme Court docket. Opponents to changing the law, including the newly elected Attorney General will now need to defend this law in court. The California Supreme Court has 60 days to decide whether or not they will actually review the case, which means there may not even be a decision on that until January of 2007.
Why Does It Matter To Me?
Recently, I received a note from a reader who wanted to know why did I feel so strongly on the issue of gay marriage. I will offer you my three top reasons for feeling the way that I do. I grew up in a country where the racial divide was often felt, but few spoke about. I grew up with friends who’s parents were of mixed race and I vividly recall being in the third grade and getting into a fight with another girl because someone told her that I’d made racial slurs about her and her family.
I never said those things and I objected morally to them because it shouldn’t matter whether your skin is blue, black, green, brown, peach or red. It shouldn’t matter and yet to some, it does. I remember seeing an interview with a man who defended his rights to protect the purity of the white race. He used God as his defense, he said God put the different races on different continents – he obviously didn’t intend for them to mingle and therefore interracial marriages were against the teachings of the Bible.
Now I hear the same arguments being applied to gay marriage and same-sex relationships. That the purity and the holiness of marriage is the relationship between a man and a woman and that anything else is a sin – but it also says judge not lest you be judged. So there’s a contradiction there. But is that my problem? No, my problem is that gay marriage bans and the arguments against gay marriage suggest that if it were to become legal, we would all abandon our marriages and immediately marry someone of the same sex.
But it seems to me that this is about defining the value of love and that the love between a man and a woman is more valuable or carries greater weight than a love between same-sex couples. If Jerry and Jim love each other and want to commit to a lifetime relationship together and to marry and honor each other that way, they should not be held to someone else’s moral standards and their love should not be weighed and measured.
We’re an imperfect people and this is an imperfect situation. I am married and I know it’s not a cakewalk – it’s wonderful, it’s wild, it’s exasperating and it’s exhilarating. I lived with my husband for more than three years before we got married. We were committed. We were moving forward. And I guarantee you it still felt different after we were married.
So the idea of telling others that they can experience the former, but they are denied the latter doesn’t sit right with me. I’ll grant you, it took decades for miscegenation to get off the law books and I’m sure it’s going to take another generation or two to get rid of the gay marriage bans – but civil rights are civil rights – and you don’t get to decide who is worth it and who isn’t.
So dear reader, I hope I answered your question. Have a great day!
Please check out more articles on the Marriage Debates.