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The Michigan Socialist | News |
National News
Jim Crow gets married
Gay marriage
rights struggle comes out
By MARTIN SCHREADER
Editor, the Michigan Socialist
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| A couple
kiss outside San Francisco City Hall during a protest in support
of the right of gays and lesbians to obtain marriage licenses. |
THERE ARE MOMENTS in history when a single act
defines an entire struggle.
In the 1930s, the Flint, Mich., sit-down strike
defined the rising militant labor movement.
In the 1950s, the Montgomery, Ala., Bus Boycott
and President Eisenhower’s sending of troops to integrate the
schools of Little Rock, Ark., defined the developing Civil Rights
Movement.
Today, the movement for gay and lesbian democratic
rights has been defined by two little words: “I do.”
On Feb. 12, the Democratic mayor of San Francisco,
Gavin Newsom, directed city officials to allow gay and lesbian
couples the right to obtain marriage licenses.
In doing so, Newsom and the City of San Francisco
became the epicenter of a nationwide movement to expand the rights
of same-sex couples and the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender
community generally.
As of the end of February, close to 7,000 same-sex
couples purchased licenses and stood for a civil ceremony.
The first couple to receive a license and be
married were Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the co-founders of the
first lesbian organization in the U.S., the Daughters of Bilitis.
Lyon and Martin had been together for 51 years.
Hundreds of city workers volunteered their time to
keep city offices open, as thousands of couples from across the
country converged on the “City by the Bay.”
At the same time, though, the storm clouds of
rightwing backlash and repression began to gather.
WITHIN DAYS OF Newsom opening the doors to
democracy, leading figures of both the Republican and Democratic
parties emerged to voice their opposition.
By far, and to no one’s surprise, the most
disgusting reactions came from Republican politicians, including
members of Congress and California’s führer, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who claimed that Newsom’s decision violated a
“defense of marriage” law enacted by the state legislature.
Even George W. Bush got into the act, appealing to
his far-right and fascist supporters by openly backing the passage
of an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage in
heterosexual and religious terms.
Leaders of the Democratic Party, including the
current front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, John
Kerry, joined with the Bush regime and the Republicans in opposing
the democratic rights of gay and lesbian couples.
However, instead of outright opposition to the
right to marry, the Democrats have come out in favor of the
“separate but equal” scheme of civil unions.
Civil unions are often held up as an “alternative”
to marriage.
But, in fact, the authorization of civil unions
alongside marriage would be little more than the creation of a
second-class status for same-sex couples.
Unlike in the case of marriage licenses, states
would not be required to recognize civil union certificates, which
would mean that couples would gain and lose their rights as they
traveled from place to place.
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| Phyllis
Lyon and Del Martin, founders of the first lesbian organization,
the Daughters of Bilitis, are congratulated after being the
first couple to obtain a marriage license in San Francisco. |
A LOT OF CONFUSION has surrounded the legality of
same-sex marriage. For the most part, all sides — even the more
radical and revolutionary advocates — have been willing to concede
the legal ground to the Right.
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution says, “all persons born or naturalized in the
United States ... are citizens,” and are entitled to both equal
access and equal protection under the law.
Since a municipal government, under the
jurisdiction of a state, issues marriage licenses, the “equal
protection” clause of the Constitution applies.
Put simply, the Fourteenth Amendment gives
same-sex couples the same rights to equal access to a marriage
license as it does to a man-woman couple.
This is why the fascistic Religious Right feels
the need to push through a Constitutional amendment; they know very
well that the Constitution as it reads today allows for all manner
of democratic reforms — including equal rights for gays and
lesbians.
This is not to say, of course, that we have
illusions that any of the capitalist politicians who hear this
argument will change their minds.
On the contrary, we fully expect that, given a
choice between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the
demands of their capitalist paymasters, they will follow their
wallet’s wishes every time.
It is not in their interest to do otherwise.
WE SOCIALISTS STAND fully in favor of the full
democratic rights of same-sex couples to marry.
It is not because we encourage marriage but
because we encourage democracy that we take this position.
The defense of democratic rights for all is
essential to the struggle for expanding and fundamentally improving
both democracy and society as a whole.
Here in Michigan, the Socialist Party has been
active in organizing to defend the rights of gays and lesbians,
including organizing an Equal Rights Rally in Lapeer after the
county commission passed an ordinance restricting their democratic
rights.
During the election campaign this year, Socialist
candidates will be the most consistent defenders of democracy and
equal rights, taking on the bigotry and institutionalized oppression
supported and perpetuated by the twin parties of capitalism.
For Socialists, a broad and more generous formal
democracy paves the way for a social revolution, a real democratic
system — in politics, economics, culture and social relations —
administered by the working majority.
The readers of the Michigan Socialist can
be certain that a Socialist administration, on a local, statewide or
national level, would make the words “I do” for same-sex couples
into a rallying cry for democracy and liberation.
A special thank you to “Waverley Hills Hiker”
of
Democratic Underground for the headline suggestion — The Editor |
