"May 17 will change the world for lesbians and gays, for better, or for worse," reports the San Francisco Chronicle in this comprehensive wrap-up on Massachusetts, where the upcoming, first ever, state-sanctioned gay marriages in the United States will take place:
The Massachusetts marriages are clearly a turning point. Unlike San Francisco's February flurry of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, which are on hold until the courts resolve their legality, these will be fully legal and may be accepted in a handful of other states such as New York.
Further notes the Chron, however:
Gay activists said that while publicly they will attempt to play up the celebrations, they are also watching what one called an "intense backlash" not witnessed even when women sought the right to vote or African Americans pushed for the end of Jim Crow.
There's no attribution for who actually offered this position, but it's clearly wrong-headed. Neither women's suffrage nor civil rights were won without years of intense struggle against a brutally hostile populace that was eventually won over. Life's just not that easy.
I like, however, that the article reports that:
The state's Republican governor, Mitt Romney, promises to enforce a 1913 miscegenation statute that voids marriages conducted in Massachusetts for out-of-state same-sex couples if that marriage would not be accepted in their home state. Several county clerks have said they will refuse to enforce the 1913 law.
Could there be a better, or worse, metaphor for those opposed to
same-sex marriage than trying to bring back to life a miscegenation
statute? Apparently, the symbolism hasn't gotten through to them,
alas.