Two down, forty-eight to go

Yesterday, the California State Supreme Court recognized the right to form a family relationship for all its citizens, homosexual and heterosexual alike. It joins Massachusetts as only the second state in the Union to recognize this right.

Some people will call this a “special right” or “judicial activism”; they argue that the law, in its majestic equality, forbid straights as well as gays to marry others of the same sex, that asking for that right is asking for something unnecessary and somehow fundamentally wrong. I’ve never really agreed with this line of thinking; the law, in its majestic equality, has in past years, forbid white as well as black to marry outside their races, to attend each others’ schools, or to ride in the same train cars.

We have a long way to go. Most of the other states have decided explicitly to deny full faith and credit to homosexual marriages legal in other states. It’s still acceptable, in most circles, to make an insult out of someone’s sexuality; people like Sally Kern can attract standing ovations and thousands of public supporters. That said, I think it’s easy to criticize too much; progress to freedom and equality is a very slow thing. It’s only been fifty-four years since Brown took the Topeka Board of Education to the Supreme Court, forty-four since Mississippi Burning. By comparison Stonewall (thirty-nine years ago next month) is a fresh memory.

People who believe in the freedom to love have two states down and forty-eight to go. It’s a very long road.

That’s OK.

I believe we’ll get there.