ALL I CAN say is this: It's about time. On Wednesday, Massachusetts' highest court made an advisory ruling that same-sex couples have the right to marry. Note, we are not simply talking about "civil unions" but the institution of marriage, semantically and legally identical to that enjoyed by heterosexuals. The decision sent social and religious conservatives nationwide, including those occupying the White House, into fits. And the Massachusetts legislature promptly rebelled by announcing plans to amend the state constitution to limit the definition of marriage to that between a man and a woman. And the majority of the public opposes gay marriage as well (CBS News Polls, July 30, 2003).
Thus it would seem that America isn't quite ready to accept gay Americans on an equal basis. The fight over true citizenship for gays recalls another minority struggle. The fight for equality of opportunity for racial minorities, particularly blacks, is far ahead of that of gays. Do we have perfect racial equality? No, but if a presidential candidate publicly declared his opposition to full rights for blacks, he wouldn't win even the Republican nomination. Acceptance of racial equality has entered the mainstream, yet gay acceptance lags disturbingly behind. If Americans would apply the framework we use to consider racial equality onto homosexuals, we could save the newer oppressed minority group the 50 years of work that we have already accomplished for blacks.
Many opponents of gay unions are willing to concede same-sex couples tax benefits, property and a host of other practical measures that married couples receive. But they balk at "marriage," that sacred institution supposedly reserved for one woman and one man; no trading allowed. So let gays have their "civil unions" and assume that marriage includes the invisible qualifier, heterosexual. But while we're doing that, let's set back the clock 50 years and let blacks have their schools and let whites have theirs. Segregation of schools, overturned by the Brown decision, long was justified by the theory of "separate but equal." But as the recent Massachusetts court decision's majority opinion astutely observed, "The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal" ("Mass Court Backs Gay Marriage," The Washington Post, Feb. 5).Segregation was outlawed not just because black schools were not on the level with white schools, but because separating the two races was a pronouncement of one's inferiority. Civil union is not marriage, and in offering gays a unique, gay solution, we condemn them to the status of second-class citizens. The model that most Americans are willing to follow is one we rejected in 1954 as racist.
To make the connection more explicit, one could examine interracial marriages. Once not only socially taboo, but legally illegitimate, unions between people of separate races were not deemed constitutional until 1967. Opponents deemed it immoral, biblically impermissible and repulsive
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