(Mods please note: I realize this is an editorial and I should be posting in the editorial section, but this covers so much plus much more of what we have been discussing here in GD for the last few weeks, I felt it would do better here. Please don't move it. This is such a wonderful article every one needs to read it. THANK YOU!)
FREEDOM-TO-MARRY ACTIVISTS BORROW STRATEGY FROM FIGHT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom touched off a defiant outburst of matrimony 10 days ago when he decided his city would issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. These marriages -- now more than 3,000 -- are also one of the most flagrant acts of mass civil disobedience in recent years.
The freedom-to-marry movement has long grounded its cause in the rhetoric and precedents of the American civil rights movement. As she began her arguments for gay marriage before the Vermont Supreme Court in 1998, lawyer Beth Robinson cited a landmark case from 1948, when the California Supreme Court became the first supreme court in the nation to throw out a ban on interracial marriage.
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Now in San Francisco's city hall, Newsom has provided the freedom-to-marry movement with what may be its Rosa Parks moment -- a turning point that for now has brought the battle beyond the courtroom.Author
Andrew Sullivan has argued that in the struggle for equal rights, the marriage taboo has been the last to fall, for both African Americans and gays and lesbians. It wasn't until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court finally found the prohibition of interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. And although gay advocates have scored increasing successes over the years for gay rights and political power, only in the last several years have they won court cases approving marriage -- and, so far, even those wins have been fleeting.
Full article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/8014041.htm