My Rights Are Your Rights

It's been incredibly inspiring to see the amount of reaction, on a national level, to the passage of Proposition 8. The real question, however, is why is Proposition 8 different than the marriage ban amendments passed in both Florida and Arizona? What makes California so different and special, and worthy of our ire?

Is it that, for God's sake, it's California? That we just can't fathom how something like this could pass, even by a slim majority, in a state that is known as the liberal bastion that is California? Is it that we've written off all of those Southern and "fly-over" states that we don't want to live in anyway?

No, the answer to the question of "Why is California exceptionally important to the fight for Equality" is that Proposition 8 effectively amended the state Constitution to take away rights that the state supreme court had already ruled existed under the Equal Protection Clause. In effect, Proposition 8 amends the Equal Protection Clause to remove gays and lesbians. It is a dangerous benchmark, and opens the door to remove gays and lesbians from existing legislation that protects us against discrimination in the workplace and in fair housing laws. Discrimination that, by the way, we are only protected against on a state level; there is no federal law in place protecting us period, and state laws are, naturally, on a state by state basis. In fact (and has been mentioned) Arkansas passed a law in this past election cycle that prohibited adoption or foster parenting by any "unmarried couples", a law that admittedly was drafted with the intent of countering the "gay agenda".

Let's not argue about the importance of establishing gays and lesbians as a "protected class" of citizens. Instead, let's talk about all people having the rights to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" as set forth in the Constitution. To argue otherwise is as ridiculous and nonsensical as to argue that it's acceptable to discriminate on the basis of hair, eye, or skin color. We are all one people, globally, regardless of anything, and it is not harmful to anyone or anything to admit as much. Those who lead by fear are not leaders, but dictators.

I leave you with a famous quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller, from the Holocaust. This hung in my bedroom in high school, and it served as a reminder that, again, we are all one people; and as one people, we have a duty to see that everyone's rights are protected. As a gay American, I have a value equal to everyone else living in this nation and this world, and it is true that "No one is free when others are oppressed." Gay, straight, black, white, regardless of nationality or faith, in the end, we are all one. And we must never be lead to believe otherwise.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

In Germany, they also came for the gays, and no one said a word. It may not happen again in the same way, with camps and gas, but once we see the erosion and seizure of one group's civil rights, we open a door that leads down a dark and terrifying corridor. Stand up for your neighbor's rights, and you stand up for your own. We are living in historic times; let's guarantee that it's a history that we can be proud of, all of us.