A Soliloquy on the Legalization of Same-sex Marriage in New York,
and the Continuing Struggle for Equality.
To my LGBT friends, heteros and general countrymen:
My congratulations go out to the New York legislature and the people they occasionally serve.
Same-sex marriage is now the law of that land.
If my math is correct, that makes six enlightened states (and D.C.) with only forty-four states to go. Unfortunately, thirty of those legislatures currently have readied constitutional amendments to permanently limit human rights in their states, therefore, the battle may be a little more acutely uphill in those capitals.
But like healthcare and abortion rights, will the war ever really be won?
As a somewhat out-of-this-political loop heterosexual with no direct personal stake in the “debate,” I continue to wonder why there is, or ever has been, a debate on this subject. What, exactly, is the debatable issue here? When did the granting of basic human rights become debatable; rights readily afforded to me but denied to my fellow citizens?
Here's another thing I don't get; how could a very smart and relatively people-friendly President boasting a resumé that includes Professor of Constitutional Law harbor an “evolving” opinion on what seems (to me) to be a fundamental moral imperative? But more importantly, as we applaud the recent prevailing wisdom in Albany, who knows where the “debate” will drift now that the floodgate is open? By floodgate, I mean the wave of insanity sure to be promulgated by those who would continue to deny others their basic human rights - by any means necessary.
Thirty-eight years have passed since a once august United States Supreme Court rendered an opinion granting American women a similar measure of basic freedom. From the moment that landmark decision was announced, an extreme mob of Christian-American jihadists began to organize with the stated goal of dismantling those rights. While Roe v Wade still survives in federal law, in practice (through chicanery and fear), the decision’s human rights advances have been reduced to little more than theory by that same mob. Today, the mob is far larger - and infinitely more dangerous.
So while most of us celebrate Friday’s notable victory for sanity, I can’t help but wonder where next the mob will expend its ample venom and violence. When they're not waging battle against the mythical government-sponsored abortion monster, the logical recipient of their wrath is usually the issue most immediately stuck in their collective craw. Who would be surprised if the Right wing's terroristic tactics exercised so successfully against abortion seekers and medical providers are now applied against the LGBT community?
One thing is a given - as progressives go, the Right has become progressively more ruthless. This is the same mob that proudly lobbies for the continued murder of 55,000 healthcare-denied Americans per year while openly paying our “fair and balanced” media to push their twisted talking points. At this very moment, millions of gay and lesbian Ugandans face a real threat of extermination thanks to these same proselytizing lunatics right here in the United States. At the tip of this poisonous spear are politically and financially powerful Right wing American evangelists, Congressmen and Senators. The American Right’s exportation of hate (with financial stipends) has now triggered Uganda’s government to consider passing a law making homosexuality an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death. The American Right has created a potential human rights horror in Uganda that even the mass-murderous Idi Amin could not achieve. Congratulations are not in order.
I'm guessing NATO has no plans in the works to bomb Kampala.
Again, I’m only guessing here, but if our homegrown psychos are willing to promote mass extermination in Uganda, to what extremes would they be willing to go in order to impose their expanding power and ever-sicker ideology right here in the United States? Will same-sex couples become the next targets of the vile and ignorant mob - and what of their marital service providers? If an abortion providing doctor can be murdered in his church, how safe is a presiding reverend, judge or town mayor from the unhinged act of some wound-up lunatic with a semi-automatic in his pocket?
In theory, it would seem logical that an obvious “hate crime” perpetrated against the LGBT community or their supporters would bring down the full weight of the United States Department of Justice on the malevolent offender. We would expect no less than severe legal retribution against those who would take away the liberty, happiness - or life - of innocent humans. But in the case of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion access, that hasn’t happened, nor have the Feds been much more effective in standing up for the LGBT community. Perhaps it would help if the President of the United States would stop wondering aloud if gay and lesbian Americans are 3/5s, 4/5s or fully human and finally complete his own evolution. If the federal government can’t, or won’t, protect the handful of surviving abortion clinics in this country, why should we expect federal law enforcement protection for the LGBT community and the myriad legal service providers happy to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies?
The mob’s ability to survive and flourish is no doubt within their own constitutional rights, but allowing these despicable fools to negate the rule of law through fear and violence has had dark consequences. As a result, the functional future of our entire legal system has been put at risk. More immediate is the potential risk to the lives of thousands of innocent and good people who wish for no more than peace and happiness in their private lives, or the same for their fellow citizens. Should the ever-maddened mob move on from its successful hate campaign against abortion clients and providers, working families, the poor, etc and concentrate its ample wrath on the LGBT community, what will be the response of the DOJ? And what of those lesser-spined Democrats (ie: NJ) who seem to shun all forms of professionally funded criticism over any consideration of right versus wrong? Yes, we’re at six states and counting, but from here, we still don’t know whether we’ll be counting up, or down.
Unfortunately, the evil that some men do lives after all of us. So it be true of the American Right. I have long-since ceased to believe that a single morsel of good is interred in the bones of any of these thugs. Their unaccountable criminal actions have evolved well beyond grievous faults, and grievously they must start to answer for it.