This is the first in a two-part argument in support of same-sex marriage.
California’s Proposition 8 is the latest in a long line of setbacks for defenders of Civil Rights dating back to the 19th century. In one day, voters repealed the marriage rights of millions of the state’s residents by declaring same-sex marriage unconstitutional – five months after those marriages began taking place. However, as history shows us, if left to popular opinion, there are many rights we take for granted today that never would have happened when they did. It was entirely because of so-called “liberal activist judges” of the time that segregation was ended in 1954, and because of one president’s actions that slavery came to a screeching halt in 1863 – two years after the Civil War began.
In the early 1950s, segregation was defended on the argument that there was no Constitutional right to racial integration. Had segregation gone to the voters in 1954 – as opposed to the courts – the measure very likely would not have passed. Even in the North, there was a shockingly minimal amount of support for integration. It took the objective and critical eye of those trained to explore and interpret the Constitution to determine that the separation of the races in public and educational facilities was wrong. And that decision was made amid popular opinion that was violently opposed to integration. It didn’t matter what the public prejudice dictated – those Supreme Court justices could find nothing in the Constitution to justify segregation, and so they had to act accordingly.
Women’s suffrage was opposed by many on the grounds that the Bible said, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord,” (Collosians 3:18). In addition, it was said suffrage went against the “natural and proper timidity and delicacy”of women ; that such political activities were simply unnatural for the weaker sex; and that it would “weaken and break up and destroy the Christian family” After a 70-year battle, a Congressional vote to give women the right to vote failed in 1918, even after a direct appeal for its passage from President Wilson. It barely passed a year later, and the 19th Amendment was ratified by the skin of its teeth, coming down to one vote in the last state, Tennessee, in 1920. By that time, there may have been enough support for it to have passed in a popular vote, but as a woman, I can’t say I’d have taken the odds. I’m glad those legislators – all men, I might add – were informed and educated enough to recognize that denying women the right t vote was a gross miscarriage of justice, regardless of what popular opinion said at the time.
Sixty years earlier, slavery was ended not because of the will of the people, but because one president stood up and said it was wrong and was going to end. Union soldiers in the Civil War were fighting Southern secession, not slavery, and while most abolitionists may have been from the North, most people from the North were not necessarily abolitionists. Once again, if left to the will of the people, slavery might have continued for several more decades. To suggest otherwise is to be tragically ignorant of the opinions and views of 19th-century people.
And so that brings us to 2008 and my point that bigotry has governed popular opinion far longer than it’s governed the courts. Additionally, decisions much more important than our neighbors’ domestic status have been decided without consulting “the will of the people.” I know it’s a fine line I walk on this issue, especially because judges and legislators have the power to nationally reverse what little progress has been made toward same-sex marriage. Also, the legislature and courts have not always taken the path that hindsight suggests would have been the right course. Does invading Iraq ring a bell? Or how about the $700 billion bailout last month that has thus far produced no results? Or how about the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 2000 election that the contested Florida ballots need not be recounted? Or even Plessy V. Furguson in 1896, without which Brown V. Topeka BOE would not have been necessary in 1954. Furthermore, I don’t recall the general public being asked to vote on any of those issues.
History, both long and short, is littered with examples of poor governing. However, in cases of Civil Rights, the government is the only entity that ensured equal rights were extended to American citizens when the general public would have upheld laws and practices based on prejudice and discrimination. Popular opposition of something does not always make it the right decision, and 52 percent of people can be wrong. It is for that reason every effort must be made to convince legislators that their support of Proposition 8 and their general opposition to same-sex marriage is in direct defiance of their sworn oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States and the rights of its citizens. If previous legislators had acted similarly, I shudder to think of all the rights we take for granted that may have never come to pass.
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