Image Credit: J. Coyle.
Maryland Gay Folks Get Closer to Marriage Equality
BBSNews Editor's Notes 2006-01-21 -- Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Brooke Murdock issued a decision finding that denying same-sex couples the ability to marry violates the state constitution's Equal Rights Amendment, which protects against discrimination based on sex. She also found that there is not even a rational basis for denying same-sex couples the ability to marry. Also according to the ACLU:
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Gay Marriage Rally at Safeco Field.
Image Credit: J. Coyle. |
The court ruled, "When tradition is the guise under which prejudice or animosity hides, it is not a legitimate state interest." The opinion further noted, "The Court is not unaware of the dramatic impact of its ruling, but it must not shy away from deciding significant legal issues when fairly presented to it for judicial determination. As others assessing the constitutionality of preventing same-sex marriage note, justifying the continued application of a classification through its past application is 'circular reasoning, not analysis,' and that it is not persuasive."
I cannot find the flaw in Judge Murdock's reasoning. I believe it is akin to the reasoning behind the Loving case in Virginia in 1967. Imagine how short a time in the history of the United States that simply marriage equality for races has been a reality. The people who bitterly complained at that time now seem arrayed against gay folks. It's almost as though some people require a class of people to hate and denigrate to somehow validate their own unfulfilled and hollow lives.
Equal rights for gay people has no effect on hetereosexual people at all. I have yet to see anyone advance a credible case showing some harm to an unparticipating other. And yet, there is this undercurrent of so-called "conservative" commentators who talk about how they are "sinners" when they condemn the behavior of others who they find don't make their gods grade.
A case in point, Janet Parshall the other night on Larry King. Media Matters puts it thusly:
During the January 17 edition of CNN's Larry King Live -- dedicated to a discussion about the implications of "the buzz around" award-winning film Brokeback Mountain (Focus Features, 2005) -- radio host Janet Parshall referred to the adoption of children by same-sex couples as "state-sanctioned child abuse" and implied that the "lifestyle" of Matthew Shepard, a gay man, was partly to blame for his 1998 murder.Opining on gay marriage, Parshall called it a "pretend family," arguing that "God himself" defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and that "everything else is a fraudulent misrepresentation." She then asserted that allowing a gay couple to adopt constituted "state-sanctioned child abuse because you've purposely taken away either a momma or a daddy, and mom and dad are both necessary in a child's life."
I watched the show myself and I noted that even Larry King seemed taken aback by both Parshall and the other guest who made similar musings. I won't quote him as Parshall's stuff is odious enough to get the point across.
These folks, Parshall and those of her ilk that call themselves "conservatives" are rapier quick in denigrating those that they don't believe are good enough humans to be afforded equal treatment and they do this trying to use their religious beliefs as the majority wedge.
They forget a couple of important truths at this point. The first is that the United States of America is not majority rule, we have a constitution with clearly enumerated rights reiterated in the Bill of Rights.
And two is that religion has no business nor constitutional perogative to interfere in civil affairs of government.
Today's so-called conservatives have it in for gay rights not because it means some harm to the union or anyones way of life. Equal rights for gay folks threatens no one in the least.
The only thinly veiled reason these folks use against equal rights for gay folks is a tired old rendition of obscenely stretching a particular religion to justify discrimination of a class of people.
I am of the opinion that there is no constitutional way to pick on one class of people and discriminate against them based upon one party or the others religion that could stand up to factual and reasoned judicial scrutiny. And in the end all of the so-called "defense" of marriage laws that get passed will not be able to stand; anymore than discrimination against any other class of people have.
So that means those who are making these bigoted appearances are really just cheerleaders for a baser and meaner America. And they're not becoming poster children exactly for religious tolerance in America.
They are becoming a bore.
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