Good News For Equality
May 28th, 2008
California might not vote to enshrine discrimination into the state Constitution:
The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.
In the long term, this appears to be a done deal, at least in California:
The poll found a strong generational gap on the issue, with those aged 18-29 approving of gay marriage by 68 percent and those 65 or older disapproving by 55 percent.
I have said this before, but my kids are going to look back on the anti-equality forces with the same mix of contempt, disgust, and confusion that I look back on people like Nixon and Bull Connor. There is no good reason to deny homosexuals equality in civil marriages. None. There are only vague notions that expanding the number of married people somehow weakens the institution of marriage (and if the illogic of the notion doesn’t turn you off the notion, the big fat lack of decline in marriage in Mass and Denmark and Canada should), tradition (as if an old bad idea is somehow made good my the passage of time) and religious based condemnations. A religious objection is a perfectly acceptable reason for a church to refuse to marry homosexuals but it is not and cannot be a reason for denying equality in civil rights to homosexuals. That way lies the politics of division, of religious bigotry, and of “my God can beat up your God”. Unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise, different classes of people shold be treated as equally as is humanly possible.
Fear of the future, hatred of people not like you, and your own personal religious preferences do not qualify as very good reasons. it is heartening to see that simple truth becoming more and more accepted.
Categories: Church & State, Culture, Legal Issues, Privacy, Religion | 9 Comments
