By Kevin Foley
Equality has never come easy in America even though it's one of our bed rock principles.
It took nearly two hundred years for African Americans to attain the same rights as white people. It has taken far longer for gays and lesbians to reach the point where society will allow them to marry the person they love.
Late Friday night, the New York state legislature passed a law permitting same sex marriage. Finally, gays and lesbians can enjoy the same right straight Americans take for granted, at least in New York and five other states.
What took so long?
The ugly persecution of gays and lesbians is a shameful smear on America's reputation as the Land of the Free. Homosexuality was once considered, and remains for many, a vice. Gays and lesbians had to hide and often paid criminal penalties for who they are. Many were ostracized, lost their jobs, were humiliated, bullied or beaten. Some, like Matthew Shepard and Harvey Milk, were murdered.
Perhaps nothing in public policy reflected our nation's collective bias against gays and lesbians like the recently repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the brainchild of the unctuous Bill Clinton, no doubt inspired by his private conversations with Hillary.
Social conservatives claim same sex marriage threatens the institution of marriage although they have never explained exactly how. Marriage after all is a private contract between two people. Most all of a marriage's joys and tribulations are played out behind closed doors where it's nobody else's business. So where's the threat?
"God not Albany defined marriage a long time ago," declared state Senator Reuben Diaz, an outspoken critic of the measure.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan argued, "We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization."
We live in a civil society, not a theocracy. The legislation redefines nothing. It acknowledges reality and codifies equality for citizens who deserve the same rights as you and me. A recent Gallup poll confirms that 53 percent of Americans agree.
The rising tide eludes some. Newt Gingrich, of all people, invoked the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which in February the Justice Department said it would no longer defend.
"I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act," Gingrich pronounced, "and I think we are drifting toward a terrible muddle which I think is going to be very, very difficult and painful to work our way out of."
If Gingrich is looking for a terrible muddle, he should consider his own marriage history or maybe his unraveling presidential campaign. Meantime, we can expect the far right noise machine to step up similar anti-gay rights attacks in the days ahead.
Saturday morning, the on-line edition of the New York Times featured a short video clip of the celebration at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, where the gay rights struggle began in the late sixties. The euphoria was palpable as the couples gathered there watched the legislature pass the new law on television.
"It's a step forward," said one man, "from being less than to being same as."
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |