On Monday, May 17, Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to officially recognize same-sex marriages -- so watch the religious right become increasingly intemperate.
Here's an interesting piece from the Alliance for Marriage. Note the language -- Massachusetts is set to "invalidate" its marriage laws, apparently by not excluding same-sex couples. It's as if the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education (which celebrates its 50th anniversary on May 17) invalidated public education by not allowing states to exclude students on the basis of their race.
Also worth noting is the way the Alliance for Marriage and other religious right groups now have thoroughly incorporated the whole multi-culti look of the left. By the way, Alliance leader Walter Fauntroy, you may remember, is the same anti-gay African-American clergyman who helped lead the rally last August in Washington marking the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. As Rick Rosendall reminds us, at the same rally National Gay & Lesbian Task Force head Matt Foreman deliberately avoided any mention of the gay marriage fight, so as not to be rude (or worse, I suppose, racially insensitive) to the homophobes on the podium.
Finally, don't put too much stock in the Alliance's claim of mounting support for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. It reamins extremely unlikely that such a measure would get out of congress, although it may be put to a vote this year to give the religious right a "scorecard' to take into the elections. Much more probable, however, is that a growing number of states will experience "gay panic" and pass state-level laws and amendments against gay marriages.
Expect the years ahead to bring only small pockets of marriage
equality, but given time these scattered lights can grow and
overwhelm the darkness of fear and prejudice that would keep us
forever separate and unequal.
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