Unfortunately, equal rights have often been decided by the courts, rather than by popular opinion. The Supreme Court had to abolish slavery (13th Amendment), allow all races their right to vote (15th Amendment) and allow women their right to vote (19th Amendment). It wasn’t until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the bans on interracial marriages (Loving v. Virginia), which were still being enforced in 16 states.
We now see all these inequalities as fundamental rights. We laugh at the absurdity of these past ideologies. In the future, we will group same-sex marriage bans with these other archaic notions.
Does the right to same-sex marriage directly affect me? You bet it does. The church is welcome to ban same-sex marriage or interracial marriage or interfaith marriage or any other distinctions it wishes to discriminate against. But the state cannot, because equality is a fundamental right of Americans, and the last time I checked, there is still a thread of division between church and state.
If you don’t want to marry someone of the same sex, don’t.
It is as simple as that.
JUDEE CARRICO
La Crescenta
Don’t tinker with marriage’s meaning
Proposition 8 is not about limiting individual rights (“Marriage sanctified? Not so fast, people,” Mailbag, Saturday). It is about avoiding the redefinition of marriage by spelling out in the Constitution what all have understood “marriage” to mean.
The support and nurture of same-sex couples and families can be accomplished, along with the preservation of their rights, by developing the concept of civil unions to provide all needed financial and social protections.
