San Franciscans are on to something with their
civil disobedience on gay marriage.
And it will still be something even if the courts
step in to stop them.
Civil disobedience, of course, is a time-honored
way to combat injustice.
It's just that this usually occurs without governmental
approval.
In San Francisco we have not just individuals, but municipal government flouting state dictates.
And this is a very good thing. More than that,
a necessary thing. Yes, we're a nation of laws,
but when those laws are unjust, it's good to
know that not all branches of government merely
continue operating on automatic. Some step in,
if only to make a statement.
San Francisco is making a powerful one.
Over and above the civil disobedience, it is taking
the tandem step of suing the state, challenging
the constitutionality of its definition of marriage.
Clearly, San Franciscans have taken this battle
for equal rights to the next level. Many of you will differ,
but what they are doing is no different and just
as meritorious as other famous instances of civil disobedience.
Equal rights are the issue.
If our civil-rights past has taught us anything,
it is that separate but equal generally doesn't equal anything
other than inequality. Yet this is precisely
the middle ground our leaders mull over while debating the semantic
and virtually non-existent real-life differences
between gay unions and gay marriages.
The civil disobedience that San Francisco's government
is displaying by issuing marriage licenses and marrying
folks should just be the start. Other cities
should follow suit and not be deterred, even if the courts rule these
marriages to be null and void.
When African-Americans tired of riding in the
back of the bus, they called transit strikes and more.
They didn't let "official" interference stop
them.
Indians, led by Mahatma Gandhi, in his drive for
Indian independence, focused on the British salt tax.
This was a monopoly through which the British
dictated that the sale or production of salt by anyone
but them was a criminal offense. So, Gandhi and
his followers marched and openly flouted the law.
When young Americans wearied of a Vietnam War
that threatened their lives and that enjoyed neither
merit nor popular support, they staged sit-ins,
marches and burned draft cards.
When earlier Americans wearied of taxation without representation, they dumped tea into the bay in Boston.
Some U.S. cities have said they will not cooperate with the Patriot Act.
Not hardly on the same plane, but when this country
passed Prohibition, folks drank anyway.
The common thread is that people, with their
lawlessness, were essentially protesting a law that made no sense.
Forbidding gay marriages makes no sense.
As has happened before, at some propitious moment
in the near future, we'll all look back and wonder what,
precisely, folks were fearing and why they were
working so hard to deny people basic rights.
Specifically, gay couples in San Francisco are
flouting the California law that says marriage can only be
between a man and a woman.
These couples, along with their local government,
have correctly reasoned that the California Constitution's
guarantee of equal protection under the law trumps
any law that, in effect, denies equal protection. Hmm.
The U.S. Constitution has an equal-protection
clause.
Conservatives have worked feverishly to get injunctions
slapped on the San Francisco municipal authorities
who are issuing marriage licenses. But last Friday
a judge denied an immediate stay of gay marriages.
It's all sounding very familiar. Try to find a
conservative these days who will admit believing way back when
that separate-but-equal along racial lines was
the proper thing and that Vietnam was a just war. When we
tackled those topics nationally, the conservatives,
talking about states rights and the rule of law, were among
those working hardest to impede progress.
Then as now, many conservatives knew better. And
just like then, others more vocal are sweeping them
along anyway. Equal rights for gays has somehow
been twisted into just another partisan dispute. At some point,
conservatives are going to have to remember that
they're supposed to be the folks against unwarranted
government intrusions. It's supposed to be a
core belief.
San Francisco, with its civil disobedience, is
showing us the way.
Other cities and the whole country should be
just as intrepid.