Sunday, June 07, 2009
I’d love to know back in the ’60s when that delicious sense of inevitability set in — that sense that, though struggles would remain, right was winning and Jim Crow was toast.
It might have been like last week with these revelations: Both Dick Cheney and Ted Olson came out for same-sex marriage.
That was just a few days after lawmakers in New York (pending Senate approval) and New Hampshire (needs House approval) voted to become the sixth and seventh states to legalize same-sex marriage.
Yes, those votes came just about the same time California’s Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. So, you might say, aren’t we just talking a political stalemate?
One could have said as much in the early ’60s when some states were fighting desegregation with all their might.
They were losing.
When Ted Olson not only steps to the microphone for same-sex marriage but goes to court for it, it’s a sign of victory on the horizon. Yes, human rights for human beings who happen to be homosexual.
It was man-bites-schnauzer news the other day when Olson joined the legal fight against California’s prohibition.
Olson was solicitor general under George W. Bush. Before that he argued the case in court for Bush’s tainted 2000 victory.
In joining the class-action suit, Olson shared the dais with David Boies, his legal rival who made Al Gore’s case in the 2000 drama.
Olson’s reason for taking this stand? “Creating a second class of citizens is discrimination, plain and simple.”
Second-class: in how such issues as joint property and health coverage are handled. Second-class: regarding tax incentives for people to marry.
We don’t need one of the nation’s foremost Republican lawyers to call it discrimination, but it sure gets your attention.
As for Cheney, he already had shown himself “soft” on these human rights. We all know why. His daughter is a lesbian with a same-sex partner. Last week he went from soft to solid when he said, “People ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”
Cheney has succumbed to something, call it an inconvenience, that some of his ideological brethren seek to avoid: eye contact. Once you know gay people, and know that what distinguishes them can’t be spread through the air or by hand contact and that it isn’t an illness anyway, you realize that their 21st Century Jim Crow treatment is both wrong and wrongheaded.
Opponents of gay marriage skillfully have posed this matter as an assault on marriage. How so? This is pro-marriage. This is pro-monogamy. It’s the age of AIDS. Isn’t monogamy a life-of-death matter?You can defend same-sex marriage on public health grounds alone.
Clearly it remains a political loser in many states. So was race-mixing, depending on one’s latitude and wrong-itude in the ‘60s.
But it’s one thing for the California Supreme Court to rule that voters said what they meant in banning gay marriage. It’s another to argue that a popularly supported ban doesn’t violate equal protection of the law, Olson and Boies seek to prove it does before the U.S. Supreme Court.
When — not if — justice triumphs over this form of discrimination, Texas will have played an inadvertent role.
Olson pointed out that the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling overturning Texas’ sodomy law provides a king-sized lily pad for hopping across the pond of popularly mandated discrimination to the solid ground of equality.
This time, when Ted Olson says it, I believe it.
John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By KDF
Jun 7, 2009 11:09 PM | Link to this
Jeremiah. I do take your comment as a compliment. Thank you. First, I have no hair to cut. lol. I am an alcoholic who has not had a drink in 3 years 11 months, but I still smoke. Smoking hurts my body, but due to some circumstances in my life, giving it up now would probably not hurt or help me. When Jesus Christ died and rose, he taught us that all the laws were made by God because he knew it was impossible for them to be followed.
I have broken several of the Ten Commandments, but I submitted my life to Christ. That's all. I did not change in a moment, but I have allowed the living Christ to begin living through me. I simply asked him to forgive me and to enter into my life. He has.
And an answer to your statement, at the end of John's Gospel, he says that Jesus did many other things as well, among what is recorded. Life presents tougher circumstances now that I am a Christian, but Jesus is there with me all the time, and I am joyous for it!
Sorry so long, but thanks for letting me blog this. :) <
By Jeremiah
Jun 7, 2009 4:45 PM | Link to this
Those who wish to claim holy soveringty for their stance on gay marriage confuse me. It is as if they only wish to pick and choose the parts of the bible they wish to follow and use as a shield against us "crazy liberals". KDF I read your posts all the time and have nothing but the utmost respect for you and your choice of faith, and your right to vote your faith all day everyday. All I am wondering is do you pick and choose what your beilive, I mean do you live a soley kosher existance, do you ever cut your hair?, Do you wear clothing made with more then one fiber? Do your slaves come from other countries? I'm not attempting to be petulant or argumenative, I just wonder that in the bible it says that in god's eyes no one sin is worse then any other, since it is a sin for you to smoke should it be illegal? This really is an issues that is not just black and white, but many shades of gray that should really be looked into before the standard the bible says no answer is given.
By sammy
Jun 7, 2009 11:31 AM | Link to this
John, it was only a year ago last month that I submitted the following, requesting that it be printed in the Trib's "Letter" section. Of course, it wasn't selected as it advocated on the wrong side of the homosexual marriage issue; wrong from the Trib's standpoint, that is. California has been rescued by its citizens since then and its Supreme Court finally capitulated upon threat of insurrection.
In just the past year, as predicted, two more states have succumbed (one courtesy of Iowa's Supreme Court for the shock of the century) and two more are halfway there legislatively. Hawaii, as I wrongly predicted, isn't one of them, believe it or not. Just wait.
"As predicted, our real national nightmare has begun. As gangrene gradually consumes the body, so our national body has begun to decay and stink and will surely die without timely amputation. RIP, Massachusetts and California. I refer to legalization of same sex marriage, by mere 4-3 majorities in both statesı Supreme Courts, against the will of a great majority of their citizens and alien residents.
This deadly rot will spread, assisted by the afflicted and their allies (enablers). Hawaii is next. The others will eventually succumb by judicial or legislative action, much sooner if Democrats hit the trifecta. The homosexual lobby has almost achieved its goal of fully legitimizing, so to speak, its unnatural lifestyle.
Much more is at stake in Novemberıs election than gasoline prices. Two wars could be lost, one cultural/moral, followed by the soul and body of the nation. Lord, save us from activist judges! American culture and traditions would be safer with the jihadists."
Can you smell the stench yet? It's getting stronger!
By mec
Jun 7, 2009 9:22 AM | Link to this
It is a cinch that the gays are not going to screw up the estate of marriage any worse than those of us who have cratered a couple of heterosexual marriages in our careers.
It might be a stretch though thinking that gay marriage is a plus for monogamy. Monogamy is not much in evidence anywhere and is complete absent among the polygamous and no doubt, polyandrous communities which, no doubt, will be working for their own right to the persuit of happiness in ref: marriage.
This is fine but It will probably take a Chinese or Cuban medical to cover all the multiple beneficiaries.
By KDF
Jun 7, 2009 9:22 AM | Link to this
JC Hedi, many of us cannot "move on" from moral issues. Mr. Young can compare it to segregation all he wants, but that does not change the fact that before Eve and then Adam ate of the fruit, our world was made perfect, with Adam and Eve made as perfect opposites. The fruit was eaten and sin entered the world. Now if you do not believe that, fine. We will all answer to to Jesus Christ one day.
I believe drunkenness is wrong, I believe homosexuality is wrong; I still smoke cigarettes, and that is wrong, I sometimes drive erratically and that is wrong. I have hateful and lustful thoughts and that is wrong. God loves each of us. But we must put ourselves before him and understand why our Savior came to die, to rise again, and relieve us of our sins that all of us certainly do have.
But the sun still shines and while I take care of this life and my family's life, I look forward to that glorious first day in Heaven!!! <
By JC Hedj
Jun 7, 2009 8:37 AM | Link to this
I do not for the life of me understand why alleged adults make such a big deal over a SEXUAL PREFERENCE.
HOMO-SEXUALITY is just that....A SEXUAL PREFERENCE.
Gays and Lesbians already have have the same personal freedoms and rights granted to ALL citizens of this country.
THE SAME RIGHTS. Marriage is not included in the BILL of Rights , the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Marriage is a primitive MAN MADE ceremony. Later recognized by the Church as a source of revenue. Ruling bodies and Lawyers found that by manipulating common beliefs they too could rape the purse strings.
I know , I know , with out sensationalism there'd be no MONEY gathering by the VULTURES.
A lady stated a while back...quit calling it marriage and make it a civil union , then let loose the LAWYERS to fight over the scraps of community property. that'll rteach them to be careful of what they wish for.
Now Move ON , just move on.
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