Gay marriage is gay marriage

In the not so distant past, say 60 years ago, the phrase "gay marriage" would have invoked a mental image of a happy (gay), young white heterosexual couple. Homosexuals, as a group, didn't really exist in the collective mainstream American mind until the Stonewall riot in 1969.

On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a popular gay bar, Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. At the time, cops were targeting gay bars as a means of "cleaning up" the city. Fueled in part by the raging fire of social justice movements in the 60's and also by the sheer exhaustion that accompanies unequal treatment, patrons of Stonewall Inn refused to be loaded into paddy wagons. This refusal lit a spark in the predominantly gay neighborhood, and resulted in riots that lasted six days--and brought the topic of gay rights into the forefront of American awareness.

Forty-four years later, my home state of Minnesota has finalized crossed what may be the final frontier in marriage equality when the legislature approved legislation to provide for the recognition of gay marriage. In becoming just the twelfth state to do so, Minnesota has reasserted its place in the nation as a progressive, forward-leaning place.

Just as many in my generation can't imagine why gay marriage is such an issue, many in my parents' generation couldn't conceptualize any problem with interracial marriage. But much like the current marriage equality movement for same-sex couples, interracial marriage faced the same road blocks known to gays today, including attempts to amend the nation's Constitution to exclude interracial marriage.

Instead, the US Supreme Court used the Constitution to provide for the legal basis for marriage expansion. In a 1964 decision on McLaughlin v Florida, the Supremes recognized that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law applied to the state's laws governing cohabitation--thus overturning Florida's exclusionary statute and setting the stage for the 1967 decision in Loving v Virginia, which fully legalized interracial marriage.

My hope is that the current Court is as equitable as the Warren court was.  As the nation awaits a decision on California's exclusionary Proposition 8 and on a separate case regarding the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), many of our fellow American's well-being remains on the line.  Marriage isn't just about the fulfillment of love; it is imbued with legal rights that most of us take for granted--rights such as the estate tax shelter, transfer of retirement benefits of a deceased partner, and family medical leave time from work to care for a spouse. Imagine if your loving partner was seriously ill, and your employer was well within his federally protected right to deny you the time away from work to provide care?

Our gay brothers and sisters deserve the chance to fulfill their lives in the same ways as the rest of us. This isn't about protecting the "sanctity of marriage" because the law doesn't recognize holiness under our belief of the separation of church and state. Nor does "sanctity" apply under its secondary meaning of inviolability--laws in every state provide for divorce. I can think of no reasonable or logical argument to exclude two loving, consensual people from the issuance of a governmentally-recognized marriage license that affords the opportunity to the legal protections provided by state and federal government.

Our Constitution and its attendant Bill of Rights are precious and central to our belief system as Americans. They make this country great. In the moral turmoil that followed the Civil War, our forefathers sought to clarify and improve the intentions of the founders by adding the 14th Amendment:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is strong, clear language that invites us toward inclusiveness, rather than division. It was true then regarding the abolishment of slavery; true for the women's suffrage movement at the turn of the 20th century; true for integrating public education in 1954; and it remains true today for same-sex couples.