California Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Marriage Ban

There is some most excellent news out of California today for those who believe in equal rights under the law for everyone. The California Supreme Court struck down a law banning gay marriage in the state, meaning that same sex couples are now free to marry as they please with full recognition under the law. The coasts tend to work as trendsetters for the rest of the country, California especially so thanks to the profound influence of the movie industry on middle America, and if this decision stands then it could truly be a landmark moment towards equality for homosexuals.

Of course it isn’t going to be easy. Project Marriage, a Christian organization touting itself as a “loose alliance of pro-family and church organizations” (which is press release code for “fundamentalist bigots”) has gotten over 1 million signatures on a proposal to amend the California constitution to ban gay marriage, thus invalidating today’s supreme court decision.

On the positive side, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has publicly stated that he will “always be there to fight against” this group and their efforts. The bad news is that the proposed constitutional amendment will go on the November ballot for a vote no matter what the governator says as long as they have enough valid signatures.

So we have a Christian group that is trying to pass legislation that will make their religious beliefs part of the secular constitution of their state. I don’t know about everyone else, but this boldfaced attempt by religion to hijack what should be a secular decision seriously pisses me off.

I’d just like to say that this is ridiculous. As Dan Savage is fond of pointing out, heterosexuals have proven with the divorce rate that they don’t give a rat’s ass about the sanctity of marriage, so that argument in favor of keeping gays from marrying falls flat. Leviticus has a pretty strong condemnation of homosexuality if you’re reading the right translation with the right interpretation, but Christians conveniently and consistently ignore Bible passages condemning divorce, adultery, and sacrificing a goat every time a woman is menstruating. Obviously they’re willing to overlook Bible passages when it makes their life more convenient, so there’s no reason why they can’t just agree to consign the anti-gay passages to the dustbin of religious history. There is absolutely no justifiable reason for all of this anti-gay sentiment amongst Christians. Even Jesus seemed like a live and let live kinda guy, not counting his cameo in Revelation.

The truth is that homosexuals provide a convenient “other” for conservative groups and conservative politicians to demonize for their own gain. Conservatives have discovered that nothing gets their fundamentalist religious base out of the church and into the voting booth better than the idea that somewhere two women or two men might be having sex with each other with the blessing of the state. And if they happen to vote anti-gay posturing politicians into office while they’re in that voting booth rallying against the perceived evils of homosexuality then that’s all the better for these Machiavellian bigots. Perhaps if conservatives ever pulled themselves away from the withered teats of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity long enough to think an independent thought then they would be appalled at how easily they as a group are manipulated and herded, but that’s about as likely as Rush and Hannity taking advantage of the new pro-gay atmosphere in California to finally consummate their forbidden love.

Heterosexuals and homosexuals alike need to fight for the basic human rights of the homosexual community. Any society that is willing to marginalize one group could just as easily marginalize everyone else, and America is better than this. If you’d like to help out then you can start by checking out the ACLU’s Get Busy Get Equal campaign. I enjoy the legal protections of marriage, and I’m sure there are many others reading this who are married themselves. It’s time that we make sure our gay friends, relatives, and neighbors enjoy those same protections. And most importantly, it’s time that we send a message to the religious right that they can’t hijack the legal process to try and legislate their religious beliefs into law.

America is not a theocracy, and we need to make sure it stays that way.

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