July 4th, 1776, June 6, 1944, and July 20, 1969 are dates associated with events that United States citizens are justifiably proud of. Similarly December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001 all denote tragedy to most Americans.
Traditional American History has deemed certain dates as iconic, but most are associated with war, catastrophe or scientific achievement. Hardly any involve significant advancements in the area of civil rights. How many people know the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, or that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified on August 18, 1920? Few can pinpoint the date the Supreme Court handed down the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling striking down racially "separate but equal" schools (May 17, 1954), or the one on which the high court ended anti-miscegenation laws with the Loving vs. Virginia decision (June 12, 1967). Probably no more than a handful of Americans know July 26, 1990 as the date President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law.
August 4, 2010 is likely another date destined to become significant in America's Civil Rights saga, yet obscure in the annals of mainstream history. Last Wednesday Federal Judge Vaughn R. Walker issued a ruling striking down California's Proposition 8, determining that the voter initiative banning same-sex marriage in California was unconstitutional "under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses."
Judge Walker's decision hardly marks the end of the same-sex marriage debate, but it might signal the beginning of the end of it. Reactions to his judgment, both from exultant civil-rights advocates and disappointed gay marriage opponents, are encouraging signs that the day is drawing closer when same-sex marriage will be a non-issue, just as interracial and interfaith unions are in most of America today.
Gay marriage foes immediately announced plans to appeal the ruling, but did so in civil, measured terms which would have been uncharacteristic of them (and of many same-sex marriage espousers) not all that long ago. Even more uplifting: no one officially associated with the National Association for Marriage, the group which helped fund Proposition 8's passage in the first place, or Protect Marriage, the coalition of religious and conservative groups that's filing the appeal, mentioned anything about the judge's sexuality. The San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this year it's an "open secret" that Judge Walker, an independent-minded conservative who was originally nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and appointed by the first President Bush in 1989, is himself gay. And it doesn't matter whether the decision to say nothing publicly on the subject was born out of common decency or the knowledge that doing so would have looked small-minded and ridiculous to most rational Americans, since no losing litigants in a same-sex marriage case ever blamed their setback on a judge's heterosexuality. Whatever the reason, not making an issue of the judge's personal life was the right thing to do, and the Proposition 8 backers who made the decision to remain mute on the matter should be commended for it.
Same-sex marriage proponents should be careful not to celebrate prematurely, though. There's no guarantee Judge Walker's decision won't be overturned on appeal. In an age when most Americans demand instant gratification 24 hours a day and seven days a week it's difficult for many progressives to accept the reality that social change in a democracy comes about not instantly, but glacially. It took America four score and six years to outlaw slavery, 144 years to approve women's suffrage, and nearly two centuries to decriminalize interracial marriages.
Those planning to appeal Judge Walker's ruling should think long and hard before doing so. Taking the "Big Government is ignoring with the will of the voters" route would be risky (not to mention ironic), given that many of the same people decrying the judge's decision would welcome government interference if it meant outlawing abortion.
The cold shoulder same-sex marriage opponents got from high-visibility California politicians like Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Attorney General (and gubernatorial hopeful) Jerry Brown is an indication that political winds are shifting. The growing feeling that legalized same-sex marriage is inevitable has made fighting it far less politically expedient. Battling same-sex marriage is rapidly becoming a cause which fewer and fewer Republicans or Democrats with long-term ambitions wish to embrace. In addition, gay marriage's more pragmatic opponents may decide there are better ways to spend the tens of millions of dollars necessary to continue paying professional fear-mongers, dividers, and provocateurs to fight something that's looking more and more likely to become accepted with each passing year.
Or they might finally come to realize that legalized same-sex marriages really won't ruin their lives or their nation, and just move on.
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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