Prop. 8 Marginalizes Human Rights of Same-Sex Couples by Gil Villagran

Prop. 8 Marginalizes Human Rights of Same-Sex Couples

By Gil Villagrán, MSW El Observador, San Jose, Nov. 14, 2008

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice…”

These words in the Preamble to our Constitution proclaimed in 1787 that our nation, birthed out of colonialism and monarchy, was truly revolutionary. It would be a democracy not seen since the golden age of Athens, where all citizens were equal before the law, and indeed, free men (more about women below) governed themselves by laws of their making. The founding fathers knew that a government by the people and for the people could not spring perfect, but would need to be perfected along the way, to “form a more perfect union,” by laws agreed in the manner prescribed by the new Constitution, in response to the ever-changing needs of our nation.

So it is that for 221 years our nation has been striving to form that “more perfect union” in fits and starts, often with pleading oratory for justice, other times in outbursts of fear and anger. A sad parade of maligned groups fills our harsh, often-murderous history against Native Americans, kidnapped enslaved Africans, indentured servants, non-English immigrants. The compromise of allowing slavery into our nation of supposed free men (discounting women’s full citizenship until 1920!) brewed the toxicity that led to the Civil War, and the more perfect emancipation of those severely de-humanized by slavery. Yet the end of legal slavery was only transformed into the legal exploitation of tenant farming, two-tiered wages, and Jim Crow separate-but-equal public services, which were very unequal!

As we celebrate a major victory with the election of Barrack Obama as our 44th and first African-American president, our nation is rightfully an “ever more perfect” democracy. However, our pride in this remarkable election must be tempered by the reality that millions of Americans remain disenfranchised from a basic and universal human right. Gay and Lesbian Americans are being told: “there is no equal place for you in this ‘ever more perfect union.’” Proposition 8, the so-called California Marriage Protection Act, was an amendment promoted to overturn a recent state supreme court decision that recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry. The passage of this proposition, by 52.3%, denies this basic human need to bond and to create a family for homosexual individuals committed to each other as couples. Many proponents of this proposition argue that they do not wish to deny the rights of gays and lesbians, but rather affirm that marriage must be reserved only for male and female couples as intended by nature, by religious teachings, and common law.

However, it is instructive to recall that at the time of our nation’s founding, marriage was disallowed for slaves because they were not recognized as full and independent human beings. After emancipation, miscegenation laws denied mixed race couples to marry, and this included other “non-whites” such as Asians, Filipinos, and persons deemed to be mentally “unfit.” It was not until 1967 that such laws were finally eliminated, continuing our nation’s march to an “ever more perfect union.” And I am certain that this pernicious remaining injustice to same sex couples who want only what most of us already enjoy—the right to find someone to love, to commit to each other to form a family, to care for each other and live their two lives as one, in harmony with families and friends in a nurturing community. One day, hopefully soon, same sex couples will no longer seem “queer” among couples enjoying their lives in our ever more perfect union.