You'll totally want to read Margaret Hoover's entire argument (posted below) but here's a foretaste:
If you are uncomfortable with gay marriage, I encourage you to pay attention to this trial, the plaintiffs, the defense and the spectrum of experts, historians, psychologists, economists, political scientists, who will testify as to the effects and detriment of Proposition 8. In the words of NAACP chairman Julian Bond, “The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others.”
Some Republicans support gay rights, but prefer progress through legislative action or majority rule at the ballot box, rather than judicial action. But what if a democratic election imposes mandates that violate a citizen’s constitutional freedom? In the event that majority rule insufficiently protects individual liberty, our system of checks and balances puts forth that it is the role of the courts, to guarantee and protect the rights to individual Americans. .
That’s why the Supreme Court, in 1967 Loving v. Virginia, legalized interracial marriage –six years after our current president was born to an interracial couple. At that time 73% of the population opposed “miscegenation.” How long would it have taken to change popular opinion, for the minority to democratically win their constitutional rights? As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously asserted, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Read it all here: FOXNews.com - Why I’m Joining the Fight for Marriage Equality
Forward it to all your "agree to disagree" conservative friends and relatives.
Print it out and keep a copy on you for the "water cooler" conversations coming up as the Prop 8 trial continues.
And give thanks for glimmers of grace in the polemic debate that is inflicting the collateral damage of dehumanization on gay and lesbian families who once again see their lives and loves reduced to "an issue."
We're a better nation than that. And when conservative commentators on FOX News start saying so then maybe -- just maybe -- we're getting somewhere!
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2 comments:
I know a few conservatives, like my brother, who are slowly moving in favor of marriage equality. They just need to have the courage to speak up. The FoxNews.com piece may help them inch in that direction.
I'm glad that you asked if I was sitting down. Boy, howdy!
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