The Overturning of Proposition 8 - One More Step Towards Gay Civil Rights

This morning a three judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling stating that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. It's a time for celebration for those who support marriage equality in California and across the U.S.

But the ruling doesn't mean that same-sex couples in California will have the right to marry any time soon. The final decision on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 may well fall to the Supreme Court as its supporters continue their appeals, but only if the High Court takes the case.

This decision represents one small step forward in an ongoing struggle for civil rights that gay men and women have been fighting for many years. The ruling makes this clear: “[A]ll parties agree that Proposition 8 had one effect only. It stripped same-sex couples of the ability they previously possessed to obtain from the State...an important right-- the right to obtain and use the designation of 'marriage' to describe their relationships. Nothing more, nothing less.”

As the Court indicated, the state cannot take away the civil rights of a class of people without substantive reasons, and there were no compelling reasons that Proposition 8 supporters could put forward. Proposition 8 didn't take away people's religious freedoms or the right to speak out against gay marriage. Nor did it further the procreation of children, one of the central reasons many put forward in favor of limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

Instead, as the Court observed: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Like its federal counterpart, The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) Proposition 8 does nothing to support the institution of marriage, and it does a great deal to injure same-sex couples and their families. And it is families who are affected by this law. Not just same-sex couples themselves, but their children, grandchildren, parents, sisters and brothers, and all of the other people who support their struggle for civil rights.

The supporters of Proposition 8 and other opponents of same-sex marriage have engaged in any number of scare tactics to make the general public feel that allowing gay men and women to marry would somehow damage marriage as an institution. The infamous National Organization for Marriage (NOM) “Gathering Storm” ad took this approach with results that its backers might not have anticipated: an endless stream of parodies, jokes on late night TV, and laughter that barely cloaked the scorn beneath it. The truth is that there is nothing to be afraid of in extending marriage rights to same-sex couples. Gay marriage has now been legal for seven years in Massachusetts, and there has been no discernible effect at all on married, heterosexual couples and their families. Nor has any credible study demonstrated that same-sex unions harm married, heterosexual couples or society at large.

Some argue that gay couples should be satisfied with the designation of “civil unions,” which can be legally equivalent to marriage. The court also addressed that argument, noting that “domestic partnerships lack the social meaning associated with marriage” and that there is a “significant symbolic disparity” between the two. The right to marry doesn't simply offer gay couples the same legal rights that heterosexual couples enjoy; it also gives them the right to designate their unions with a title that has enormous historical, social, and cultural resonance.

The ruling explains this in eloquent terms:

We emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of 'marriage.' The designation is important because 'marriage' is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committeed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of 'registered domestic partnership' does not.

Like Judge Walker, who made the original ruling overturning Prop 8, I may be accused of having a bias on this issue. I witnessed my son's own wedding to his partner this past August in New Mexico, and the two are now legally married in the state of New York, although not in Texas, where they are both students.

But apart from my feelings as parent who is thrilled to see her son in a loving, committed relationship, I also feel that gay marriage is the civil rights issue of our time. Eventually, I believe we will see the legalization of same-sex marriage on a national level, and as in the case of Massachusetts, I can safely predict that a few years later, people will wonder what all the fuss was about. We look back at laws prohibiting interracial marriage, and they seem absurd. A few decades it was headline news to say that a wife could accuse her husband of rape, and that also has given way to a new understanding of women's rights and sexual agency.

But right now, that vision of marriage equality remains just a vision, a hope, and a dream for many same-sex couples whose committed relationships do not even have the status of civil unions. This ruling on Proposition 8 is something to celebrate, but we have a long way to go in pursuit of gay civil rights and an acceptance of gay men and women as equal citizens in our society.