"On the night after the big Supreme Court rulings against
DOMA and refusing to hear Prop 8, while gays across our country celebrated, my
husband stewed angrily.
'For most of us, nothing changed,' he said, livid at the
celebrations going on around him on Facebook and otherwise.
There was no consoling him out of his mood.
And after some reflection on my part, it occurred to me he’s
right.
While gays and lesbians in same sex marriages celebrated wildly,
the rest of us were left to watch and wait and wish. Our turn will come someday.
Well, someday sucks.
No one, repeat no one, likes to watch someone else enjoy
something you want but can’t have.
Here in Colorado, it has never been more apparent that civil
unions aren’t civil; with no federal recognition, they’re separate and unequal
and decidedly lesser. The time for
marriage equality is now.
What the Supreme Court ruled muddied the waters for those of
us who live in states like ours. On the
surface nothing changed, and beneath the surface lay a murky mess of unanswered
questions and a bounty of legal loopholes and codified contradictions between
the state and federal levels of government.
The Denver Post reported that Colorado’s constitutional
amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman could be
challenged with a ballot initiative, provided we gather a little over 85,000
signatures statewide.
Let’s get cracking.
This is the time when our political lobby has to step up,
not back off. (One Colorado, I’m
looking in your direction.) We need to
have a ballot measure drafted. We need
to start collecting signatures now. The
polling shows us that we have the support. Our governor backs us. Our
legislature backs us. We have the
momentum.
We need to strike while the iron is hot.
And while that’s going on, we need someone to file a lawsuit
against the current amendment. The
Supremes did us a solid by laying the groundwork for how to attack codified
discrimination. It doesn’t stand the
test of fairness, so it deserves a vigorous challenge. Legal precedent has now been established.
As
individuals, we need to follow Minnesota’s lead. We need to talk with
our friends, our
families, and our neighbors about what marriage equality means. We need
to talk about fairness and compassion. We need to talk with everyone
and campaign
for everyone’s support. If it can work
in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, it can work in Colorful Colorado,
too.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said that injustice anywhere is
a threat to justice everywhere.
When we were kids, we brought cupcakes to school on our
birthday. We made sure to note how many
kids were in our class so that everyone could have one. Why? Because it was fair, and when you celebrate, you want to celebrate with
everyone.
The Supreme Court rulings were nice, I suppose. And we’re a little bit closer to free, I
suppose. But it’s no fun watching other
kids eating cupcakes when you don’t get one.
So rather than wait for someone to hand us a cupcake, let’s
grab some ingredients and get started.
We’ve got some work to do, Colorado.
The time is now. The
support is there. The momentum is
ours. The goal is worthy.
