Rights at the Wrong Time: Bad timing from the California Supreme Court

First, though it's going to seem a bit hollow, I have long supported gay rights. I've had gay and lesbian friends since I was in high school more than 40 years ago. All the hoopla over rights for blacks, women, gays, etc. in fact is something of a continuing shock to me because it seems to me obvious that we all should have those "unalienable rights" of which Thomas Jefferson wrote. We are all human beings (though I have doubts about Dick and Lynn Cheney, Pat and Bay Buchanan and am quite sure that Ann Coulter is not) and by virtue of that fact we all inherently have those rights regardless of our color, ethnicity or whom we love. That said, I am more than a little ambivalent about the decision of the California Supreme Court today (May 15, 2008) declaring California laws banning same-sex marriages illegal.

I would, however, have no ambivalence whatever had this same decision come down on, say, November 10, 2008. The Supreme Court's decision is obviously and unquestionably correct. But this decision in our largest and most populous state is only going to electrify the bigots and loonies during an election campaign. The effect is likely to be that we will spend more time talking about same-sex marriage than we will about the criminally prosecuted war in Iraq or the decimation of the American economy by the neo-fascist ideologues of the Republican Party.

This past Tuesday we were treated to interviews with older white voters in West Virginia making clear that their bigotries had survived unchanged since the 1950s. They offered a raft of false excuses and outright racist statements for rejecting Barack Obama's candidacy. Their bigotries reveal the dark, noisome depths of American ignorance, fear and hatred that the Republican Party has mined so effectively for the last 60 plus years. The Republican prescription for winning elections has been to fragment and intimidate the electorate. They exploit the fears of black and white, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight bringing those ephemeral and foolish issues to the fore so that we never have to consider why the United States alone amongst the industrial nations of the world deny our citizens health care, adequate housing and decent pensions.

Ultimately the California Supreme Court's decision was long overdue. It was correct. The dissent that would have it that the decision violates the separation of powers is, prima facie, absurd and an abdication of judicial responsibility. If it is not for the Supreme Court to rule on the Constitutionality of a law, what is the Supreme Court for? I am glad that my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters now can legally marry in California as well as Massachusetts. Still, had I had my druthers I would have allowed the injustice to continue for another 6 months so that we could have a presidential election without scum from Focus on the Family and other bigots energized by this decision. I'm not proud of that position but I must own it mine.