Wednesday, August 4, 2010

sense prevails

California's "Proposition 8" has been overturned. You can read about it lots of places, this is one of them.

The article I linked above reports the judge to have written in his decision:

"...Proposition 8 fails to possess even a rational basis... Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as 'the right to same-sex marriage' would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy--namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages."

Yup.

I sincerely hope the opposition will finally stand down. It's just so much wasted energy. Wasted negative energy. Bad for the soul. Bad karma.

But you know, I'm pretty sure that in the years to come those who presently are given to hating will look back and realize it wasn't such a big deal after all. Well, most of them anyway. (I'm an optimist.)

Folks, I promise, the world will not come to an end because boys are marrying boys and girls are marrying girls. So just get over it.

Live and let live...

2 comments:

Scott said...

I just found this little editorial comment written in December 2003.
"The flap over gay marriage might be resolved with a simple change of terms. Marriage is recognized in most jurisdictions as the legal union of one man and one woman. Perhaps if we coined the term "pairrage" to mean the legal union of two men or the legal union of two women, we might solve this dilemma."
full article at http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/12/14/editorial_ed1f.html
I understand this hearkens us back to the old "separate but equal" lie we told ourselves during segregation, but if Prop 8 could define marriage as it did, then define "pairrage" and endow it with equal rights and protection under the law, isn't everyone then happy?

Scott said...

Or am I being naive by thinking it all boils down to semantics? The Prop 8 proponents argued that because California State Law requires that marriage be taught in public schools, so in order to protect children from learning about homosexuality in school, they felt it important to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. I am certain that many of the people who voted for Prop 8 never considered this argument at all, but simply voted yes because it was, in essence, a ban on gay marriage.
I am afraid that the whole thing is so emotionally charged that neither side is capable of logical debate or reasoning.