Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Iowa has beaten California and New York...

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Can’t believe that the Supreme Court in Iowa of all places has passed the same sex marriage law. Iowa has addressed a law that more “liberal” states still can’t seem to realize?
The thing that bothered me about the recent California constitutional ban of same sex marriages is that quotes are often used to state that 60% (or more or less) of the people polled in the state are against same sex marriages so therefore they shouldn’t have them.

This on an emotional level perhaps works for people but on a legal level should be a civil rights issue. Do gay people have the same rights as straight people in this country?
If not, why not? Are they lesser citizens, inferior to others and therefore not to be afforded the same rights to be happily/unhappily married as everyone else, to live and work where they choose?
This very discrimination has been used in the past to segregate other groups to prevent them from exerting their rights in this country.
Even if it’s an unpopular legal issue in some quarters that doesn’t make it right or appropriate to discriminate against a group of people then sanction against them with laws.

If public opinion of some states or the federal government was that there should be no civil rights for blacks, children, elderly or women in this country would we have ever passed the necessary laws to protect their respective rights as a nation? Even the right to practice different religions is upheld and protected by the laws and government.

I’m sorry but whatever I personally think on the subject doesn’t matter in the sense that the group consensus is not always right legally. We cannot allow prejudice to rule the laws of our land any more than we can condone a mob with pitchforks that takes justice into its own hands.

So come on California, New York and elsewhere, the issue isn’t really the definition of marriage, if gay people are allowed the right to get married it won’t lessen my marriage or anyone else’s.
It’s about civil rights and who controls or gets to have them over others.

G’night.
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