The Field Poll result, released today, shows the highest level of support in more than three decades of polling Californians on the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage laws. The poll found 51 percent of registered voters favor the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed, while 42 percent disapprove.
What this indicates, I hope, is "So goes California, so goes the rest of the nation." There's a long fight ahead, as eighteen states have passed various anti-gay, "defense of marriage" amendments to their respective state constitutions in the past two federal election cycles. Twenty-seven states include some form of restriction on same-sex marriage currently. It will most likely be a state-by-state battle to restore civil rights and equal opportunity for a minority that's been demonized and marginalized for far too long.
The crux of the matter here is not "special rights," as conservatives love to bray - it is simply recognizing equal rights for adult, tax-paying gay and lesbian Americans (living will designees, property inheritance, hospital visitation, etc.) as straight Americans enjoy. As far as the "threat to straight marriages" canard goes, I doubt the the "spectre" of Adam and Steve or Ellen and Portia getting hitched drove Vito Fossella to knock up his secret lover or Larry Craig to cruise airport bathrooms for dick or David Vitter to get in a diaper for a romp with a prostitute. And it sure as hell didn't prevent Bill Clinton from getting a squeezer from an intern in the Oval Office before he signed the repugnant Defense of Marriage Act into law.
Gay and lesbian citizens have fought for this country, they've been responsible for advances in medicine and technology, they've been captains of industry and have been the most grassroots of organizers. They've held elected office and have inspired the political structure from the outside.
I won't even begin to list the contributions gay and lesbian artists have made to the books we read, the music we listen to, the TV shows and movies we watch, the live theater that entertains us, the art we appreciate, the sculptures that impress us, the poems that inspire us, etc.
They are our co-workers, our neighbors, our friends, our classmates, our bar-mates and our family. They are us and we are them.
Idealist that I am, I imagine this time as analogous to the late 50's/early 60's, where a Supreme Court decision (Brown v. Board of Education) gave fuel to a nascent civil rights movement and a gradual shift in public sentiment in favor of desegregation. I trust it won't take Bull Connor and the Birmingham police turning hoses on protesters to move the national mood in favor of recognizing that same-sex couples deserve the same rights as their straight counterparts. Nor do I look forward to a Federal act, on the level of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, which inspires, in spite of lofty goals, generations of resentment and political polarization in less-tolerant segments of the nation. States must decide if they want to be on the right, or wrong, side of history.
I'm overjoyed for my business school classmates in California who have been waiting for this ruling for well over a decade and a half and for same-sex couples throughout the state who have been given overdue respect by the state's constitutional authority. I hope this movement spreads eastward and graces all the states in the union with equality for all of our citizens.
It is because I love them dearly and want only for this country to respect them as much as I do that I echo that old anthem -
WE SHALL OVERCOME
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