The Beav according to Beav

Still crazy after all these years.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

For Shame

Never before have I been so ashamed to be from Florida. Not during the 2000 election debacle; not when confronted by the fact that FARK has given it its own tag; not ever.

Today, I hang my head and consider disavowing my home State. On the ballot this year, along with President, along with Congressmen, along with countless State and local officials, there was an amendment to the State Constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. To deny marriage rights to an entire section of people. I am ashamed because it passed. It more than passed. It won by a sizable margin. It won in every single precinct. Overwhelmingly, my fellow Floridians decided that if you love someone of the same gender, you don’t deserve the same rights as the rest of us. You are worth less as a citizen. You don’t get the same protection under the law, even if we have to change the highest law in the State to make it so.

There is a video on YouTube of a commercial for Proposition 8 (the CA version of the same amendment), where someone has replaced the words “same-sex” with “interracial” in the arguments for Prop 8. There is no rational way to listen to it and maintain that it is not base discrimination. Most of the arguments are even the same ones used in 1958 when Loving v. Virginia was being heard and talked about. In that judgment, the court wrote:

“Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

How can we say that this could not have been written about homosexuals? How can we say that sexual orientation is not protectable? How can we as a people have come far enough to elect a president who is a product of just such a marriage, and yet deny marriage rights so analogous? It makes me weep. I weep for the present, but I hope for the future, for I have learned from the past.

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4 Comments:

  • At 3:57 PM, Blogger Soo Mi said…

    I feel your pain, Beav. It's all so stupid. Exactly who gets hurt when gays are allowed to marry? Does it really make The Baby Jesus cry? Why do people even care?

    I have the right to choose to kill my unborn baby, I am not forced to attend a church nor forced to prescribe to the notion of an omnipotent creator, I can drink and smoke myself to death, I can even expose my children to second-hand smoke, and yet if I were gay I could not marry.

    Floriduh douchebags. Beav, you are excused. Please feel free to pick a state, and proclaim it as your own.

    May I recommend South Dakota? It gets so little attention these days, and the views are breathtaking, if you're into miles and miles of abandoned farmland.

     
  • At 10:01 AM, Blogger Wabbitt said…

    It does seem rather absurd to on the one hand to finally empower one facet of the country, then turn around and take away all the rights and privledges of another group of people.

    I had one idea for the gay community of both California & Florida, get together and buy as much as you can on the net. Another words, buy out of state, collectivly and individually. In this day and age nothing speaks louder than money. Just a thought.

     
  • At 3:53 PM, Blogger Devyl Gyrl said…

    I was incredibly surprised that it won throughout the state. I was pretty sure it would win in the Bible belt areas ... but ... seriously? The rest of us? What is WRONG with people???

    I am horribly disappointed in our home state as well. I am horrified that in this day and age, people can not open their hearts and allow LOVE to be the deciding factor in such a matter.

    We have a lot of work to do in the future ... we have a lot of small minds to overcome ... we have a future to secure.

     
  • At 8:07 PM, Blogger K said…

    It is just plain legislated bigotry, and it stinks. But, for the record, they had actually already passed a similar bill (not an amendment) defining marriage to be so in Florida. So this was just a stronger-sounding implementation of bias. It is sad.

     

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