What unites us

I find it extraordinary that 2008 will be the year that an African American became President and gay marriage was given legal status. The scenes from California are so encouraging and, in my mind, link with the Obama candidacy. In Obama's campaign we find the claim that we are all united in wanting the same things--a good education for our children, fair pay, forward-looking public policy, and a government that is responsive and focused on the needs of the wide majority, not the privileged and the wealthy. And in the celebration of gay marriage we find something similar--a recognition that we all deserve the opportunity to establish a home with the person we love, and to raise children, if we choose to, and to have our union be part of the public record so we can count on the protections that the law promises to married couples.

Update (6/19): My friend over at St. Scobie's offered a great perspective on gay marriage. She points out that her marriage (and my marriage, and in fact all marriages) are stronger when we permit gays to marry because we eliminate the rottenness at the foundation of the institution. At one time it was illegal in much of America for whites and African-Americans to marry. Then Loving v. Virginia swept away anti-miscegenation laws, stating:

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

This seems so clear to us now, and, one day, so too will the idea that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry. In the Loving decision, the Supreme Court said anti-miscegenation laws were "subversive to the principle of equality," and so too are laws or efforts to erect laws that deny marriage to same-sex couples. In short, viewed through Scobie's eyes, marriage remains a subversive institution, blind to our commitment to equality, as long as gays are denied the right to marry. Thanks to events in California, her marriage, and my marriage, and the institution of marriage is stronger because it is freed from this blind disregard for a portion of our population.

By the way, if you don't read St. Scobie's on a regular basis, you should. She is funny and smart and all over the place.