Derek wrote a great little post today about how the real story of this gay marriage decision is going to be lost in the media’s desire to create controversy, pitting “gay activists” against “religious fundementalists”.
I’m a 31 year-old married guy. I am not, by any measure, a gay activist. And I am thrilled by Judge Kramer’s ruling. Why? Because I believe in equal rights.
This is a very simple equation: The California constitution says that the state cannot discriminate. And marriage, for better or worse, is a state-sanctioned practice. So for the state to say that one group of people cannot participate because of who they are, that’s discriminatory. Period.
California’s ban on same-sex marriage is no different than the old laws that said that men could own property and women couldn’t. Or that blacks and whites couldn’t marry. Those laws had tradition and religion on their side, too, and how do they look today?
Read the rest of his post at http://www.powazek.com/2005/03/000500.html