It's a Civil Rights Thing

Proposition 8 passed in California, and it bothers me. It often seems that with many legal issues, as goes California, so goes the rest of the country. I wonder why more people can’t see this issue for what it is, a civil rights issue.

In particular, why can’t more people of color – Latinos and blacks voted overwhelmingly in favor of Proposition 8 – see this as a civil rights issue? Many members of these minority groups seem perfectly willing to accept the benefits provided them by the hard work and sacrifices of the Civil Rights Movement but unwilling to extend those benefits to others who are similarly oppressed.

Me? I say it’s just bigotry. Because, in the purest sense of the term, recognizing the equal right of people in a same sex relationship to marry is a CIVIL rights issue.

The newspapers and news websites tell us that it was religion that swayed slightly more than 50% of Latino voters and 70% of African-American voters in California. Many African-American ministers and Catholic priests with Latino congregations pushed Proposition 8 from the pulpit.

But who cares what your religious views are? This is not a religious issue. No one is asking for the right to get married in your church by your minister, priest, rabbi, or imam. The civil act of marriage does not require the blessing of any such person. It requires only the imprimatur of the state. Same sex couples simply want to be granted the same CIVIL RIGHT to inheritance. The same CIVIL RIGHT to joint ownership of property. The same CIVIL RIGHT to marital tax treatment. The same CIVIL RIGHT to healthcare and retirement benefits for their partners and children. They’re not asking for God’s blessing; they’re asking for the government’s.

And the government should give it. It’s called “equal protection,” and it’s guaranteed by Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Be bigoted in your religious practices if you want, but the government should not practice bigotry when recognizing and protecting the rights of its citizens. (And, incidentally, thanks to the Second Amendment, you’re perfectly free to practice your bigoted religion.)

And people just need to get over the idea that granting people who live a lifestyle that is distasteful to them the same rights somehow cheapens their rights. There are lots of things that are morally offensive to various people but are nonetheless sanctioned by the government. Simply because someone finds an act morally offensive doesn’t mean that act should lack constitutional protection. Mores can change over time and should not interfere with the recognition and protection of constitutional rights.

In the earlier years of this country, many people (if not most people) found it morally reprehensible for people of different races, particularly blacks and whites, to intermarry. Until the mid-Fifties, miscegenation was illegal in most states. At the marriage license office, interracial couples needed not apply. Then, in 1967, came Loving v. Virginia, the case in which the Supreme Court declared that – regardless of public opinion about the morality of such unions – marriages between people of different races was constitutionally protected by the 14th Amendment. So, you may not approve of such unions; you may even find them distasteful; but they’re legal.

Personally, I don’t approve of crackheads having babies (and find it morally reprehensible for someone to expose a fetus to crack cocaine), but when one does, she has the same CIVIL RIGHT to custody of her child that I have of mine. I certainly wouldn’t deny her the right to have her parental rights terminated only after notice, an opportunity to be heard, and proof of her unfitness. It doesn’t cheapen my parental rights in the least to grant those rights to people I feel engage in reprehensible conduct. In fact, it strengthens my rights. We shouldn’t head down the slippery slope of denying some people – but not all people – access to their constitutional rights.

The issue is no different for people in same sex relationships who want their right to marriage recognized and protected.

It is both the wonderful and sometimes frightening reality in this country that you are free to think whatever you want; you are free to say just about anything you want; and you are free to practice your religion as you please. As a result, you are free to think that it is morally wrong for people of the same sex to marry; you are free to say that you think it’s morally wrong; and your church is free to deny religious rites to persons of the same sex.

None of us, however, is free to deny other citizens equal protection of the law. If you, in your happy heterosexual home, are entitled to the governmental extension of marital rights, so are all the people in same sex relationships. It is a CIVIL RIGHTS issue.