Now, by a slim majority, they’ve taken it away. We are no longer entitled to equal rights under the law. For awhile anyway.
Throughout the centuries marriage has come in many forms and with many restrictions. Marriage was a way to unite kingdoms and lands. Arranged marriages that forbid a person to choose their spouse are common in the world even today. Some places require a dowry.
For hundreds of years, women had few to no legal rights once they married. Married women could not make contracts, maintain their own names, file lawsuits, have full ownership and control of property, and in some cases could not maintain custody of their children after their husband’s death.
In 1948 the California Supreme Court became the first state high court to declare a ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional. Nineteen years later Loving v. Virginia ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.
And in May, 2008, the California Supreme Court struck down the 2000 law banning gay marriage:
“In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation – like a person's race or gender – does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.”
This is a time to mourn a return to a past of injustice, self-righteousness and discrimination. A time when one group of people say they are entitled to more rights than another group of people. But history shows that prejudices gradually fall away and the society grows more tolerant and stronger. Take heart – we will marry again.
Gloria Hovde lives in Lower Lake.
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