Congratulations Fellow Citizens
by digby
As dday notes below, today is a big day in California. For the first time ever, gay citizens are going to be allowed to marry. It’s hard to believe that anyone thinks they shouldn’t be able to, but then I don’t understand why people think the private lives of other consenting adults is any of their business in the first place.
It seems to me that it is inevitable that this will become an accepted legal right, probably in my lifetime, which is quite an amazing achievement. But, we should not be complacent that everything will settle into normality and the issue will have been resolved. We thought that was true back in 1973 when Roe vs Wade was decided and it has been a fight ever since then. This, like the legal right for women to have agency and control their reproductive destiny, is a big social change and there are always reactionary and revanchist forces who will be energized by it. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. I think this is a great step forward in human progress and I’m thrilled to be seeing it unfold. But these things are never easy and we’ll have to be prepared for the repercussions.
It’s interesting that this is happening at the same time that the progressive political party is making a serious play for socially conservative voters, for whom this particular issue is of deep moral consequence. They are reaching out on issues of poverty and global warming, but it will be interesting to see if the tent really is big enough to accommodate gay marriage and this, from Talk To Action:
The Kampala Monitor reports:
Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.
Warren was speaking in support of Ugandan Anglicans who intend to boycott the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, and this harsh rejection of tolerance for gays and lesbians may have serious consequences in a country where homosexuals face harrassment and and the threat of imprisonment.
Warren’s comment is of a piece with his support for Martin Ssempa, the Ugandan evangelist who has been a keynote speaker at a Warren conference, and who has received US global AIDS prevention funds. As I wrote in August, Ssempa wants to ensure that homosexuality remains illegal and that gays and lesbians are identified in the public mind as sexual abusers. Ssempa calls for media censorship against opposing views and the dismissal of dissenting academics, and last summer he organised a rally with the theme “A Call for Action on Behalf of the Victims of Homosexuality”, at which he railed against “molestation and sodomy.”
It’s hard to see how you can have a party that believes in both equality for gay people and that, but it looks like we’re going to see.
In the meantime, to all you gay couples who are going to marry soon here in the sunshine state: Mazeltov!
Oh, and thanks to Gavin Newsome for being a real liberal and getting the ball rolling on this. I hope he runs for Governor. He’s my kind of Democrat:
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is considering a 2010 run for governor – a campaign that would embrace many of the same divisive causes he has championed as mayor, including same-sex marriage, universal health care and protections for illegal immigrants, The Chronicle has learned.
If he runs on that platform and wins then we know we have entered a new progressive era.
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