Yesterday, many people noted that representatives of religious faiths, on both sides, gave quite a lot of the testimony before Senate Judiciary, while a long list of marriage equality supporters didn't get the opportunity to speak. Sean DiGiovanna was one, and his testimony was noted this morning in Jersey Jazzman's post on NJEA's support for marriage equality. This is the testimony Sean was prepared to give; I asked him to post it. And I should tell you two things: Sean is a long time member of the Blue Jersey community, as is his husband. And I attended their wedding, which was wonderful. - Rosi
NJEA has endorsed the marriage equality bill that passed today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. As an NJEA member and acting head of the NJEA LGBT and Allies caucus, I was asked to testify today. Although I was not called upon to testify, I thought I would share it with you here. I'm also quoted in NJEA's news story on their endorsement here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting today to hear testimony from opposing sides on the question of whether to extend the freedom to marry to same-sex couples by way of the Marriage Equality Act. Deja Vu. This time around, it appears that Democrats will be almost universally on the side of equal rights. (Yey!)
But, the big question, today and throughout this year's debates in the Senate and the Assembly, will be: where are the Republicans? Here's hoping enough Republicans will join us on the right side of this issue, the right side of history, and the right side of their own friends and family members - sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, grandchildren - who are aching for equality.
Because, as I said two years ago, "We're never ever going away. We'll be back year after year, year after year, until we are treated as equals." And today, we're back. So, I say to Governor Christie and legislators, Republican and Democratic: Let's put an end to this. Let's treat all New Jerseyans with the dignity and respect they deserve. Make marriage equality the law of the state. And do it now. You have the power.:
(Video courtesy of my fellow discriminatee, Jay Lassiter, with an assist from our friend, Lori Braunstein, who is a wizard at this kind of thing. Thanks Jay and Lori!)
On Tuesday, we will see the first step in the effort to pass Senate Bill 1 (S1), the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act. It promises to be an exciting hearing. Our friends at Garden State Equality will be there, and I’m sure the proponents of marriage discrimination will be also.
America was founded on principles of individual rights, and it’s appropriate that the marriage equality bill is the first piece of legislation to be considered in this session. That’s not to say that jobs, health care, and education are not critical. But individual rights are the bedrock of our society, and should never take a back seat to the other important issues.
Despite the Constitutional guarantees, there are still people who, as Steven Goldstein of GSE puts it, demand “special rights” of heterosexual marriage. It’s important that we understand and counter their arguments so that we help tip the balance in the legislature toward the side of marriage equality.
WTFNJ?
Where's the Freedom?
By, Jon Holden Galluccio
On a beautiful summer Sunday, we had the opportunity to attend a rally in Hoboken sponsored by Garden State Equality and Lambda Legal to raise our voices in protest. For as our brothers and sisters were getting legally married across the river on that gorgeous summer day, we here in New Jersey are still denied the right to marry. So we asked, "Where's the Freedom?" or just "WTF?"
Lambda was there to announce their latest lawsuit "Garden State Equality vs. the State of NJ...." But WHY DOES THERE HAVE TO BE ANOTHER LAWSUIT? Didn't the Supreme Court of NJ already rule in favor of equality. Of course they did, but they left it in the hands of cowards to enact it and so instead of marriage equality we got Civil Unions. So even though most of the legislators will admit that civil unions did not bring marriage equality to the lgbt community we still have to fight and file a lawsuit to get it changed.
Now, if the Supreme Court of NJ told me to do something and I didn't, wouldn't that be a violation and wouldn't I be charged, held responsible in some manner? Why can't we make a citizen's arrest of all of those in Trenton that ignored the Supreme Court the first time around? I can't imagine breaking the law and so easily getting away with it but isn't that exactly what happened here and continues each and every day we don't have marriage equality. Maybe if we just held each and every one of them responsible for their actions things might change a little quicker down in Trenton.
My kids get it and it's all about freedom. We, the lgbt community, are not free. We are not protected, we are second class. My daughter saw this last year and asked if she could stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance because "freedom and liberty for all" was a lie. We said yes as we don't say it ourselves (we can talk about this another time). What's important here is that why is it taking so long and costing so much when we all know that eventually we will have the freedom to marry but until then I'll just scratch my head and ask WTF?
JON HOLDEN GALLUCCIO, AUTHOR OF "AN AMERICAN FAMILY" WITH MICHAEL GALLUCCIO AND DAVID GROFF, IS A FINANCIAL SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE WITH METLIFE. HE RESIDES WITH MICHAEL AND TWO OF THEIR CHILDREN IN NORTH HALEDON.
We've been running the ThinkEqual ads all day. They're the work of Jack Bohrer and Juan Melli, who wrote them and got them shot. They're a take-off on Apple's PC guy vs. Mac guy ads. Our blonde's like Mac Guy. Everything's easy breezy. Our brunette's PC Guy. It's all complicated, and the fact she's got to constantly explain what a civil union is to other people, like in a bar, gets in her way.
This ad's my favorite. The last one filmed in a very long day, the bartenders' misunderstanding of her CU was improvised, and everybody's laughter nearly ruined the shot. Juan makes a cameo appearance as one of the bar guys. I'll post the last one late tonight.
Like I said in an earlier post, we're running all 4 of Blue Jersey's ads in the Think Equalseries, created to help convince New Jersey that civil unions aren't as good, as easily-understood, as equal as marriage. Do they look familiar? Yes, they're a take-off on Apple's amusing PC Guy vs. Mac Guy ads.
In this one, we're doing taxes ...
Is there an "other" box? No there isn't an "other" box. Don't you have a marriage license? I have a ... civil union. You should upgrade to a marriage!
@jay_lass I'll also say this, the @bluejersey tv spots on #marriageEQUALITY are still the best things on the subject i've ever seen.
Wow, that's so nice! The 4 Think Equal ads Blue Jersey did - conceived, written and produced by Jack Bohrer and Juan Melli with fantastic actors, director & crew- were one of the best things Blue Jersey ever did. Four PSA's for TV cleverly outlining the differences between civil unions and real marriage. A take-off on Apple's PC vs. Mac ads.
There are 4 ads. Here's the first. We'll run the rest of them throughout today and tonight. They honor our neighbors across the Hudson. This is for you, New York, with our thanks.
One night after New York's game-changing vote for marriage equality, this is the view you will see out the windows at Legends Ball at the waterfront Hyatt Jersey City tonight, the beautiful skyline of a more equal New York.
So, as your strolling around in your sequins tonight, check out the Legends Ball Silent Auction. One thing up for bid tonight is a $500 advertising package at Blue Jersey.
Want to see your ad up here at Blue Jersey? To be seen by thousands of New Jersey's best-educated forward thinkers? We want you, too, you know it. Right now, I'm wondering who the winning bid will be tonight at Legends!
So many of the people who write here, and read & engage with Blue Jersey every day will be there, and will join in the celebration of New York, all lit up just across the Hudson tonight. It's a star-studded night, but I just want to take a sec and recognize Rev. Bruce Davidson, winner of the Loretta Weinberg Prize for Lifetime Achievement and Barbra Casbar Siperstein, named the first-ever John Adler Icon of Equality.
But who's going to win the Blue Jersey ads? Dying to know ...
The National Organization for Marriage clowncar juggernaut was inTrenton today. The notoriously well-funded, (anti-gay) N.O.M crew is on tour spreading rancor from state to state.
The good folks at Garden State Equality (I'm a member) did a great job of showing up our angry rivals, although I grudgingly concede the style points to their tricked-out Winnebago festooned with stock photos of faux families.
The real action was inside, where we had /real/ families!
This post, about the basis for the amicus brief ACLU-NJ wrote on behalf of marriage equality in New Jersey, was written by Ed Barocas, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union-NJ. Separate is never equal. Over the weekend, ACLU of New Jersey received the Gibbons Prize for Law and Social Justice from Garden State Equality. - promoted by Rosi Efthim
Rights that exist merely in theory or on paper are meaningless. They only mean something to people's lives if they exist in reality. For rights to mean something, they must be on paper and in practice for perpetuity.
On February 19, 2007, New Jersey's Civil Unions Law took effect. While same-sex couples and their families throughout the state were, on paper, afforded some of the rights and responsibilities previously denied them, the day also marked a sad and unfulfilling moment in the history of our state. It has gone down as the day New Jersey officially wrote back into law the notion of "separate but equal."
The past three years have served as a reminder - for some unnecessary - that separate is never equal. And the same couples that initially brought the battle for equality to the courts in 2004 have once again petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court for their constitutional right to equality.
During the Civil Unions Commission hearings that the Legislature mandated to review the effects of the law, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings during the December 2009 run-up to the vote on marriage equality, family after family testified about the discrimination they experienced because the title given to them, "civil unions," was an inferior institution that excluded them from well-understood title of marriage.
The titles we give to our rights matter. They affect whether those rights will be respected throughout our state at hospitals, in schools, in everyday business transactions, and in practically every endeavor susceptible to human error. Many New Jerseyans have no idea what civil unions are, much less a nuanced understanding of the rights they carry.
Simply put, the Civil Unions Law has failed to fulfill the promise of equality. And children of civil union couples suffer most of all.
The most compelling stories during the Senate hearings on marriage equality in December came from school children. One student had been mercilessly bullied at school, while other children told the committee how excluded they felt when their classmates failed understand their parents' (non)marital status. When businesses and hospital personnel routinely don't understand civil unions, how can we expect our children to?
Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example."
What kind of statement does the government make when it segregates one group from all of the others? That it's acceptable to have two classes of people with two sets of rights. When the state itself segregates people, it grants the rest of society permission to do the same. Through its example, the Civil Unions Law excuses bigotry and emboldens bullies.
Last month, the ACLU-NJ submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of ourselves and seven other leading rights organizations. It explained that, even when courts in the past initially permitted "separate but equal" institutions or systems to exist, those courts struck down, the segregated systems once evidence established that they continued to lead to different treatment. Even ardent opponents of marriage equality have conceded that denying same-sex couples the title of marriage has perpetuated these disparities.
If a system so separate were established on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity or gender, we would decry it, call it bigotry, see it as an affront to all New Jerseyans, and call it abhorrent and wrong. When it is done on the basis of sexual orientation, it is no less of an affront to all New Jerseyans, and no less abhorrent and wrong.
Hopefully, the New Jersey Supreme Court will be on the correct side of history - the side that long ago established that segregation of rights and people can never result in full equality.
Thank God the Camden County Democrats can still hand out fat contracts because they sure aren't doing anything policy-wise. Read as they tie themselves in knots over what to do with a new prison no one wants.
Beach Slapped.
A reader has some harsh words for Senator Jim Beach's abstention on marriage equality in today's Courier Post. Whoever wrote that editorial sure was pissed!
Fr. Michael Doyle is the Camden priest recently profiled in a documentary called the Poet of Poverty. The movie was screened last night in Cherry Hill and I cried and laughed and cried and laughed some more. Here's the trailer. And yes, that's Martin Sheen doing narration.
So, if you're waiting and watching from home, and wondering when this boat is launching, I'm here to help. I mean really here - upstairs in the Senate Gallery watching at almost 2:30 as staffers have begun to mill about, and some doings have started at the podium.
The scene is tense, notwithstanding the dismal scorecard published in the Star Ledger today. When hope is all you have, hope persists.
So far, I've seen Gov. Codey in his chambers across the rotunda, and Sens. Sweeney and Girgenti enter separately and exit thru a side door upstairs, and now Bateman and some others are entering downstairs.
Like many of you, the ACLU-NJ has a list of resolutions for 2010. However, unlike most New Jerseyans - but keeping in good company with Blue Jersey's politicos - we only have about a week to see results. Here's our list, and we need help to keep it.
1. To save money (while making government records more accessible). We're working to pass a bill that would bring the government's fees to copy public records in line with what it actually costs to copy them. Cities have charged as much as $10 for the first three pages - far higher than what you'll find at your local copy shop. It protects our democracy, and it makes cents. Read ACLU-NJ Open Government Attorney Bobby Conner's op-ed in The Star-Ledgeron lowering the cost of copies.
2. To treat people fairly. The ACLU-NJ is fighting to make sure all families in New Jersey are equal by giving same-sex couples their right to marry. Read ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas' piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer about marriage.
3. To help people when they need it most. Our criminal justice system doesn't do much to stop crime or mete out justice. A package of bills offers reforms proven to help people avoid resorting to crime once they re-enter the real world. The bills offer food stamps to former prisoners, remove barriers to finding work, help prisoners get their GED and, perhaps most important, end huge fees families must pay to collect calls from their loved ones. Read my op-ed in The Record about redemption through intelligent criminal justice reforms.
If you help us keep our resolutions by calling your legislators TODAY, we'll help you keep yours. (As far as we're concerned, exercising your right to free speech absolutely counts as exercise.) So get active (on the issues) and call your legislators to suggest some resolutions, before the clock on opportunity strikes midnight.
If you've attended a marriage lobby day in Trenton, you know how hard it is for any one person to recap it all. That's mostly because at any one time, there are multiple things going on in and around various parts of the statehouse. But, here's what I saw and heard today:
Hundreds of marriage equality supporters showed up this morning, in spite of (or maybe because of?) Speaker Joe Roberts' New Year's Eve announcement that the Assembly would not conduct hearings on the issue. They formed the familiar sea of blue t-shirts with the simple message of what we want: Equality - the American Dream. It is so inspiring to see the huge numbers of equality supporters - faces old and young, gay and straight, of every race - who have made the trip to Trenton for each of these lobby days.
Of course, you should look for articles in the newspaper tomorrow that say things like "advocates on both sides of the marriage issue were in Trenton yesterday" because there were indeed about ten (12?) anti-equality advocates there too. And, they were sporting a new look! Gone were the "Let the People Vote" buttons - replaced by t-shirts proclaiming that "Marriage has a Purpose" and that purpose is to make babies, who will be raised by both a man and a woman. (I'm not making this up.)
The marriage equality activists filled the hearing rooms, worked the hallways, and gathered on the statehouse steps for a rally and press conference at high noon, when we heard from some of the folks who would have been testifying at the hearings, had they taken place. As one of the speakers noted - it was freezing outside, but our spirits were red hot!
We also heard from a large group of religious leaders from a variety of faiths - off the top of my head, I remember Jewish, Episcopal, Church of Christ, Lutheran, and Baptist leaders, though there were others. They were reiterating the point over a hundred of their colleagues made earlier today in the Clergy Letter for Equality delivered to legislators - that their freedom of religion is being violated by the state's refusal to recognize the marriages they perform in the sanctity of their houses of worship.
I confess - of all the arguments for passing the marriage bill (legal, moral, economic, fairness, justice, equality, etc.) - it's this one that I can't believe has not yet prevailed. The fact that legislators are literally and openly choosing one faith's teachings over the teachings of others to dictate what the law of our state will be flies in the face of everything I've ever learned about how our country was founded.
But, back to the freezing press conference.
We heard from a number of Assembly supporters - Valerie Huttle, John McKeon and Mila Jasey - each of whom braved the cold to address the crowd with words of admiration that struck me as containing both encouragement and regret. Encouragement to keep fighting for what we all know is right. Regret that the legislature of which they are members has yet to deliver on its promise of equality.
And, everywhere, before and after the press conference, and down every hallway, the conversation was being had - the one that we're going to keep having. About how this should not be happening - a community forced to beg its elected officials to be treated as equals - and how we need to make sure this will never happen again.
This piece, by ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas, originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Promoted by Rosi Efthim, who in full disclosure should say she is proud that a member of her family is an ACLU-NJ board member. But that's not why we're posting this, we're doing that because Ed Barocas is right.
N.J. statute discriminates against couples, families.
In New Jersey's debate over marriage, legislators have suggested making businesses pay for discrimination that lawmakers themselves created with the 2006 civil union law. It seems that the legislature believes discrimination is only a problem when someone else practices it.
During last month's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on marriage equality, family after family testified about discrimination they experienced, ranging from bank tellers to hospital staff, who failed to recognize their civil unions.
But rather than enact the obvious remedy - legalizing gay marriage - five Republican state senators suggested flaws could be corrected by levying "strong penalties" against businesses that fail to recognize the rights of civil union couples and their families. But neither fines nor revisions will fix the discrimination written into this law.
Legislators fashioned a segregated system of rights for one group of citizens in 2006, hoping that somehow separate would be equal. But as history shows us, separate is never equal. Many New Jerseyans have no idea what civil unions are and therefore simply fail to recognize the rights they carry.
If the legislature were to massage the civil union law rather than reform it, businesses could face fines, as well as vast, untold costs to train employees and alter data systems (most business forms recognize people only as "married" or "single"). And taxpayers would foot the multimillion-dollar bill to educate businesses and the public about a law that still would be inherently discriminatory.
Laws don't exist in a vacuum, and the titles we give to our rights affect how those rights are treated in our state, in the country and around the globe. And children of civil union couples suffer most of all.
The most compelling testimony during the Senate hearing came from a student who had been mercilessly bullied at school and from other children who felt like outsiders when they couldn't make their classmates understand their parents' nonmarital status. How can kids on the playground be expected to understand civil unions when businesses and hospital personnel don't get it?
Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example."
What is the legislature teaching by segregating one group from all others? That it's acceptable to have two classes of people with two sets of rights. When the state itself segregates people, it grants the rest of society permission to do the same. Through its example, the legislature excuses bigotry and emboldens bullies.
Senators, the time has come to right this wrong rather than heap the blame and cost of your own discriminatory decision upon others.
Ed Barocas (info@aclu-nj.org) is the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
As New Jersey continues its own winding path toward marriage equality, the big news this week comes from our nation's capitol, where the DC Council voted 11-2 in favor of marriage equality yesterday, with the city's Mayor eager to make it the law of the District. Though it won't silence the race-baiters who keep trying to pit the African-American community against extending the freedom to marry to same-sex couples, it is noteworthy that 5 of the 7 African-American Councilmembers voted yes (and marriage expert Marion Barry being one of the "no" votes).
More noteworthy was the study by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, created in the weeks leading up to the Council vote, which found:
more than 10,000 same-sex couples from across the country could get married in the District over the next three years if the measure becomes law ... which could pump millions of dollars into the regional economy
Of course, this isn't the first study to look into the huge economic benefit marriage equality would bring to states where same-sex couples can marry. But, the DC analysis is just another reminder of how important marriage equality is - not just to the people who want to marry, and those who support their right to do so, but to the majority of New Jersey voters for whom the most important issues are finding a job for themselves and having the state find a source of revenue other than their property taxes.
Win. Win. Win!
And what's most noteworthy? New Jersey is uniquely situated to explode those financial estimates, sitting as it does in the shadow of New York state, which recognizes out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.
My name is Einat Sapegin. I am only 17 years old, but my story and the story of my family contains more hate, more pain, and more fear than any person's story should.
My family is Jewish, and they're from the Soviet Union, where Jews faced violent discrimination, fewer chances for employment and fewer education opportunities. They had to prove that they were sufficiently non-Jewish to simply live a normal life. Still, they faced adversity. My mother was one course short of earning the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree. Her instructor was anti-Semitic, and despite having similar quality work to her non-Jewish peers, he refused to pass her.
When my mother, father and brother became Soviet expatriates and moved to Israel, they had to prove themselves Jewish enough to receive Israeli citizenship. They fought with officials and religious experts to prove themselves worthy of a homeland that was supposedly guaranteed to all Jews. After they overcame this hurdle, they had to adjust. They had to adjust with a new language, a new country, a new national identity and new people. Most difficult of all, they had to adjust to every new citizen getting a government-issued gas mask as a welcome to the country. I, as a baby, also had a gas mask. That was my
welcome into the world. They had to deal with the knowledge that my father might get on the morning bus to Haifa, but that bus might not make it to Haifa. We weren't living in poverty, but we did learn how to
stretch a shekel, with only my father working, and four people to support.
My extended family chose to go to America, following my uncle and his family at the last minute. Leaving my immediate family in a strange country with a newborn. Eventually, we joined my extended family here in America, but our troubles were far from over. My first year in America, was spent in Elizabeth, NJ, in a small, one bedroom apartment, living with with ten other people. My first years in school were spent being taunted for not knowing English. But I understood enough when a
girl told me that she wanted to crush the faces of all the Jews. I was in second grade, and the girl did not get expelled, suspended or even detention. Her seat was moved across the room, and no one spoke of the incident again. No one even asked if I was okay.
In middle school, there were teases about my weight. There was one particularly bizarre rumor of me being a hermaphrodite. But the most painful, was my coming out to someone I thought was close and trust-worthy, but somehow, everyone knew within two days, and it led
to isolation and general middle school torment.
The reason why I'm telling you this, and not reasons why you should support the marriage equality bill legally is because I'm sure you're aware of the law. I'm sure you know that everyone should have equal protection under law and that the law should apply to everyone the same way. I'm sure you know what the Constitution says.
But you didn't know my story. My story is one of hurt and pain. I have come from too much discrimination and I have experienced too much hate for my new country, for my government and my elected officials to tell me I am not good enough. My story is also the same story of so many GLBTQ people. Dates, names, and places are different, but that's trivial. We have all experienced bigotry.
We are done. We are done having to prove ourselves good enough. We are done asking people to deem us worthy of acceptance. We shouldn't need a special seal of approval. The fact that we are citizens and humans
that are capable of love should be enough. We should not have to stand here and plead and convince you to give us the same rights that you innately have.
No one should have to go through a process to prove themselves worthy of rights that everyone else has, but discrimination will never end as long as the government allows it. Call it a civil union, call it a domestic partnership, but let's call it what it really is-- prejudice wrapped in politically safe convention. If you really thought we were
equal, you would not support anything but marriage. The fact that a government had to create and invent a completely new institution just to keep gays away from straights is completely ridiculous.
I tell you now, we are worthy and we are good enough. We should not need a seal of approval, but we do need your vote. We have come through too much to be turned away and we have come through too much
to be confined to a second-class status.
Because no one should have to endure pain, because no one should have to prove themselves worthy, because we are all human, I urge you to support the marriage equality bill.
I was moved by Thurman Hart's post, here, reaching out to hard hearted Christians.
I post this, in sympathy with that, to assist people in making up their own minds on the issue. I do so tentatively but willingly, nevertheless, because now is the time. This is written using terms or language that some will recognize, but others might find odd.
I hope people find this consistent with Senator Baroni's 'balance of liberties' formulation, which I think should be admired by Republicans and Democrats alike.
On Monday, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in New Jersey asked, as time wore on, "does anyone waiting to testify have something new to add?"
There was a little bit of nutty happening over there in the hearing room yesterday. No worries, babies. Go for marriage equality. Because on that other thing? that free speech thing? I'm here to tell ya, ACLU-NJ's got your back. - - promoted by Rosi
The vast majority of those testifying at last nights Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on marriage equality told moving stories of love, family and justice. We heard from families who had overcome harrowing obstacles and given back to society in humbling ways, children holding out hope that their parents would be allowed to marry each other like their friends' families, and some 50 clergy who wanted to marry their congregants.
In testimony from the other side, although the topic was marriage equality, free speech seemed to play the part of star witness.
One Hasidic rabbi - of whom there were many - voiced particular concern that he would be legally barred from condemning same-sex marriage in his synagogue.
Huh? As an authority on the First Amendment, be assured that you can still slam same-sex marriage all you want at temple.
After the rabbis took the stage, John Tomicki of the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage (which represents, as far as I can tell, no one) somehow wound his argument to say that allowing marriage equality infringed upon his religious freedom rights and therefore his right to religious expression. He then asked the senators if they would represent him if he preached his beliefs on the street corner.
Hey, over here, in the overflow room, the ACLU will represent you. Free speech in public places is one of our specialties. Just give us a call (no need to meet in person).
And finally, I spoke with a guy from Knights of Columbus (to his wife's terror) who was dead sure that marriage equality would result in dramatic free speech infringements. "Just look at what happened in Canada," he told me five or six times.
What happened in Canada? Nothing as far as I know. But anyway, we don't live in Canada.
And we have a really strong First Amendment; Canada doesn't.
The spirit of Rick Santorum hovered in the room as opponents let loose their far-fetched fears that marriage between gay couples would lead to polygamy, underage marriage and, if I heard right, bestiality.
Our country has seen steady progress over the past few decades in wiping out homophobia. We've learned that marriage in Massachusetts hasn't brought society to a halt. Our culture has become familiar with images of gay couples raising families and living ordinary lives. Our opponents have but one thing to cling to: scare tactics. It makes you realize how scared they must be, when they're swinging desperately in the committee hearing room. (Unfortunately, confronting those irrational fears will be an ongoing project for our side).
The absurdity of the opposition's arguments in yesterday's committee room made me realize that even though this fight is far from over, it's fundamentally over. We win. It's only a matter of time before we have marriage equality in this country, in every state.
How soon it happens depends on how smart and strategic we can be. It's a question of whether we can put aside our differences to have honest conversations about our beliefs and our lives. How patient will we be in bringing people along? How impatient will we be to get equal rights? How committed are we to working together and keeping the flame alive? The country, as we've seen in a handful of different states this year, still hasn't figured out what the right answers to those questions are.
I recently heard the folk singer Ferron say something like, "Society can only move forward as fast as the slowest person, so you might as well get to the back of the line and try to help push it along."
Based on yesterday's testimony, which was delivered by overwhelmingly by smart, inspiring, amazing human beings standing for their rights, and which included some eloquent truths from Senators Weinberg, Gill and Baroni, the good news is that most people are up here with us. The bad news is too many others are straggling behind.
