Marriage Vs Civil Union: Separate But Equal Round Two

Proposition 8 and all like wise propositions passed this election were a slap to the face of not just the gay community, but all people who seek justice and equality. To remove the rights enjoyed by a group of people for selfish and self serving reasons, for bigoted translations of a two thousand year old book, for simple fear showed such a breach of the grand American Ideal that it personally left this blogger in shock. What has been even more of an outrage has been the defense used over and over again for the proposition. That being that the gay community should be happy with civil unions. That they are the same thing, separate from marriage, but equal to it. How is this not a red flag? Didn’t we as a people just go through this in the last fifty years?

To accept this is to set a dangerous precedent. While right now the laws surrounding both are the same, it divides the institution into two camps. Once that has happened it opens the door for the same people who originally wanted this division to start stripping away the benefits and rights of one without harming the other. That is what seeking the title of marriage instead of civil union represent after all. It at once represents an acceptance into society to be allowed the same rights by the same names that others enjoy and also protects them from the people who don’t accept them. Under the cover all title of marriage there is nothing the more bigoted people could do to gay couples unions as a whole without damaging themselves. The only reason for the existence of a separate but equal institution is to first isolate a outlier group, which just feels like an un-American thing to do in the first place, and slowly start to put little extra wedges into the issue until they are no longer equal, but still allowing people to say, “but it is equal. It says so in the name.” When we look into our own past we merely have to ask ourselves how fast the separate but equal schools for blacks and whites became just separate. It was a fast process, and one that was hard to over turn because the majority of the people who would have fought against such blatant injustice had already bought into the illusion of equality that was created. We as Americans can not let that illusion be crafted again lest it replace true equality. Some people have said that the gay community and their straight supporter’s outrage over the past week and a half has set back the movement because they should be focusing on endearing themselves to the people who do not like them. That doesn’t work though. Quietly sitting back and enduring the whims of those who would pass laws like Prop 8 merely emboldens them, telling them that they can get away with it without consequence and to embolden these people is the most dangerous thing the gay community and their supporters could do. The lessons of the past must guide our hand. Let the mistakes made by those before us prevent us from making those same mistakes today. We can not let another separate but equal institution take hold if we really want America to be that beacon to the world, the example used to say that this is how a just and equal country carries itself.

The illegality of the proposition, both Constitutionally and legislatively isn‘t even the issue. It is the vile act of removing the rights of our brothers and neighbors and how this could turn out to be the great enabler for such actions that is at the root of what should be every American‘s outrage at this. The proponents of civil union will take an inch, then another, until they’ve taken a foot, and then a leg, all the way up until they’ve reached the heart of the institution and ripped it out if they are allowed to do so all the while using the separate but equal argument as their disguise. It is better to take that away now, let all unions fall under the institution of marriage, and let those who don’t like it either come to accept it when they realize that the institution of marriage has been no further degraded or deal with the ugly thing they see staring back at them in the mirror when they aren’t hidden behind the mask of false equality.