Recently, I listened to an Oklahoma news-person give his opinion concerning Virginia's state attorney general, Mark R. Herring decision not to defend that state's ban on same-sex marriage. His opinion was that it was an outrage that the attorney general of that state not defending the rule of law. He said this was not about same-sex marriage but that the attorney general was not doing his job.
The first job of any attorney general, though they are a state attorney or the Attorney General of the United States, is to defend the U.S. Constitution, which is the highest document of the land regarding the rights of all citizens of the United States. Just because a state decides to vote on the rights of a certain minority to marry or not to marry, it does not override the protection of the U.S. Constitution.
There was a time when 16 states banned interracial marriages until the U.S. Supreme Court voted unanimously in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia that the law was unconstitutional. Just because state legislators or even a majority of voters in any state design a law to block the right or rights of a minority from having the same rights as the majority, does not stand in the way of the U.S. Constitution's equal protection. Sometimes the U.S. Supreme Court has to step in to affirm the constitutionality of a state law, and it is obvious that the court needs to affirm more strongly than in its ruling concerning marriage equality in Windsor v. United States.
I live in a state - Oklahoma - that has its own same-sex marriage ban, voted on by the people of Oklahoma in 2004. A federal judge has also ruled that law to be unconstitutional. Oklahoma's governor, state attorney general and state representatives have made statements making their disappointment clear.
Governor Mary Fallin said, "The people of Oklahoma have spoken on this issue. I support the right of Oklahoma's voters to govern themselves on this and other policy matters. I am disappointed in the judge's ruling and troubled that the will of the people has once again been ignored by the federal government."
The will of the people, though they be Oklahoma voters or all the voters in the United States, do not speak for the minority. Repeatedly, the U.S. Supreme Court has had to stand up for minority rights. A state can decide many things for its own set of laws but it cannot make a law that discriminates against a certain minority. The same as state law cannot determine the right of an individual to be free and not a slave, a state cannot determine what rights an individual has or does not have compared to all other citizens.
There is another good reason why the right of marriage cannot be decided state by state, and that is the right of a married couple to travel and live where they choose. Though it because of a job relocation or because a couple chooses to live close to their families or just because they choose to live in a certain state, that should be the right of every citizen. Why should a gay couple be restricted, as though they are second-class citizens, to only states that recognize their marriage? This is imposing an undue burden on their marriage and their lives, in which it does not for heterosexual couples. Therefore, it is unconstitutional.
I realize that this nation is at a crossroads, in which yet another minority is standing up for equal protection under the law and that minority happens to be LGBT members. They are also American citizens and entitled to the same rights as every other American. It is a shame when state lawmakers and governors, those who supposed to serve and represent all of the citizens and not just the majority, takes stands against a minority because of their own prejudices and their own set of values. Their values are not my values and their religion is not my religion. I hear these same people talk about religious freedom in this country; does that mean they have the freedom to impose their religion upon me, or do I have freedom from their religion, the same has they have freedom from my religion?
I spent a lifetime being restricted because of who I am. I have had to live in a straight world and in most cases; I have had to hide my sexuality because of my job or because of where I lived. Now, a majority of Americans believe that I deserve to have the same rights as everyone else. It should not have taken a majority to bring me my rights. The U.S. Supreme Court in this case came dragging up the rear, and even now has not entirely stood up for my rights. Unfortunately, in certain states, including my own, a majority has voted to ban me and other LGBT members from the same rights they enjoy. Of course, that vote in 2004 by Oklahomans, may be different now, as a majority of Oklahomans now support marriage equality. That depends greatly on who shows up at the polls coming this next Election Day, if the state again decides to put it on the ballot.
Eventually, LGBT members, no matter where they live, will enjoy the same rights as all other Americans, though it will not end all the prejudice that exists. Laws that ban gay people from the right to marry, along with laws that ban the right of that marriage to be recognized anywhere they travel or move to in these United States, will someday fall not too far into the future. Until then, we will continue the struggle to fight for the right to be equal under the law if not in the eyes of all our fellow Americans.