Same-Sex Marriage: Birth of a new movement for civil rights movement

THOUSANDS OF gays and lesbians lined up at City Hall in San Francisco when Mayor Gavin Newsom announced February 12 that the city would issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in defiance of state law. "A lot of us had already said ‘I do’ in our own private ceremonies years earlier," said Kathryn Lybarger, describing the scene. "But the tears coming down this time came from the understanding that we were saying ‘I do’ together, for the first time in history. My friend James said it felt something like the end of apartheid, or the Berlin Wall coming down."

By February 20, more than 3,000 couples had taken part in wedding ceremonies. "There’s going to be a lot of push around the country for gay marriage now," Phyllis Lyon told Socialist Worker.

Lyons and her partner of 51 years, Del Martin--both longtime gay rights activists--were the first to be married. "Everybody is looking at their constitution," she said. "It has pushed the issue up to the front."

Last week, 26 gay and lesbian couples got their marriage licenses in Sandoval County, New Mexico, before the state attorney general announced that the licenses were invalid. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was forced to tell the press that he would be in favor of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. In Massachusetts, the fight is on to defend recent state Supreme Judicial Court rulings that grant full marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

Declaring "separate is seldom, if ever, equal," four of the court’s seven judges argued that a state senate bill granting civil unions and banning gay marriage was unconstitutional. A two-day Massachusetts constitutional congress ended in a stalemate February 11-12 as supporters and opponents of gay marriage faced off in the state house--and in the streets outside. More than 1,000 supporters of gay marriage spontaneously turned out to raise their voices--as did the anti-gay bigots.

Massachusetts legislators will reconvene on March 11. Some Democratic legislators have said that they will propose "compromise" legislation that bans gay marriage and grants vaguely worded civil unions. But gay rights supporters can’t afford to compromise.

"This is just a savvy political move on the part of people who don't want gay marriage," Whitney Weiss, an Emerson College student who protested around the clock at the Massachusetts state house, told Socialist Worker. "If you look at history, ‘separate but equal’ compromises never work...As of May 17, there will be gay marriages happening, and this is going to create a momentum that will make the civil unions compromise look asinine. Anything other than real equality is unconstitutional."

Supporters of gay and lesbian civil rights have a fight on our hands. In California, after a restraining order requested by the right-wing Campaign for California Families was denied in court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped forward to say that he would stop the marriages in San Francisco. And nationally, George W. Bush sent a clear message to his religious supporters in his January State of the Union address that the White House would try to pass a federal ban on gay marriages.

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http://www.socialistworker.org/2004-1/488/488_05_SeperateUNequal.shtml