One Step Closer

The Associated Press is reporting today that a bill aimed at legalizing gay marriage here in the Empire State is expected to pass the New York State Assembly very soon, and that the bill also has a fighting chance in the Senate. Whether or not you agree with these impending actions, this is progress, and you cannot stand in front of it. I wrote in my February 23rd post:

"I believe in 50 years, our society will look back on the fight against gay marriage the same way we now look back at the civil rights movement of the 1950s, or interracial marriage, or slavery, our country's original sin. "They were fighting over this?" they'll ask. On a long enough period of time, social progressives will overcome social conservatives every time. And if our textbooks are any indication, history will not judge well those who try keep others from enjoying the same freedoms."

Thanks to the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it has been standard legal precedent in this country for 55 years that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal, and that thinking must apply as much to gay marriage as it does to separate washrooms for those of a different skin color. There are many -- such as in California -- who are pushing for an explicit state or federal ban on gay marriage. Such a move -- though it has the weight of its own American precedent of trying to keep a minority down -- is nothing more than an obstacle in our collective search for a more perfect union. We as a country cannot reach any kind of perfected union if the will of the majority can be used to subjugate the rights of the minority. Our country has experienced such situations before, and we would be wise to not repeat the same mistakes.