Equality: A Painful Pilgrimage

In the nyt.com today there was this well-written editorial about the losses the LGBTQ community took on Tue.: gay marriages banned in FL, CA and AZ, and not being able to adopt children in AR. The one that is most painful was in CA because, as the essay states, we had the right to marry, and that was then taken away, making us second class citizens by law and by the constitution of that state if you are a resident of that state. However CA did pass a bill in which certain animals would have enough room to stretch their legs in former-cramped conditions. So CA sided with farm animals and not LGBTQ couples!?

Here are the choicest lines:

Far from showing that California’s Supreme Court was wrong to extend the right of marriage to gay people, the passage of Proposition 8 is a reminder of the crucial role that the courts play in protecting vulnerable groups from unfair treatment.

Apart from creating legal uncertainty about the thousands of same-sex marriages that have been performed in California and giving rise to lawsuits challenging whether the rules governing ballot measures were properly followed, the immediate impact of Tuesday’s rights-shredding exercise is to underscore the danger of allowing the ballot box to be used to take away people’s fundamental rights.

Read here for more (click).

Pace!

B