esrosedotblog

LONGING

Longing.

This appreciation of the Kennedy opinion in yesterdays strike down of DOMA is by Linda Hirshman, the author of Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution, a New York Times Notable Book of 2012.

The Gay Marriage Victory over DOMA is Bigger Than You Think

In it she addresses the three key words with which Justice Kennedy opens his verdict.

“When at first,” he began, “Windsor and Spyer longed to marry, neither New York nor any other State granted them that right.”

It is hard for me to read these lines without some tears.

Longing.

Kennedy goes on to savage the implications within DOMA which belittles and demeans some of our citizens. Takes away dignity. Condemns the children of gay parents to a second tier life.

Hirshman points out how, in another decision, Kennedy wrote

“it is not in our constitutional tradition to enact laws of this sort.”

To me, this is to the heart of the issue of gay equality. Of course I am biased.

Those who say that domestic partnership is the same as marriage miss the point entirely. It is not the same. It is, as Justice Ginsberg said, "skim milk marriage".

There are hetero-couples who seek domestic partnership or have it thrust on them as they have common law time living together. They do not view that it is the same. Ask.

The other thing. The children. This is the unmentioned issue.

My children have a gay father. And a gay step-father. I know first hand this is important to them. And they are grown adults. They do not feel shame. But they do feel the difference. It is disapprobation of society. Every time they "come out" as having a gay parent they face a form of the same discrimination that I have and do face. Well, the same prejudice. I don't allow discrimination. But it takes work.

Kennedy's words in the earlier case led to big things for others to follow and this widest possible interpretation and opinion to which a majority of justices have subscribed paves the way for the very end of gay discrimination in every state of the union.

Oh. Someone mentioned to me that Scalia's comments were related to the process and legal grounding the majority used. Not that he was against gay marriage.

Well that is precisely the point. The hiding of prejudice under legal technicalities. I do not say that the minority is evil. Perhaps a bit behind the times and more than willing to mask their own prejudice in words like "originalism" which have no meaning other than convenient curtains to hang when the "conservative" beliefs are threatened.

I do admit that I think Scalia is a nasty man, arrogant and not as sly as he likes to think himself to be.

He is on record, even off the record, outside the court, as a rather virulent gay basher. He loves to use the words "homosexual sodomy" as frequently as he can. Amusing perhaps to the right audience. You can always find that kind. A smirker, Scalia thinks himself clever where, for the most part, he is sad. In a class with Mike Huckabee and the like. Only in those black robes he seems to be serious.

Enough of that. Ad hominem. It is not fair, huh?

Let's see happiness, not the sad.

Our hero, Edie Windsor (right) and her late wife Thea Clara Spyer.

Labels: marriage equality