Today, the state of Texas is voting on a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning marriage between same sex individuals. I have been thinking about this day and dreading it in a way, but I’m not entirely clear as to why the dread. Texas outlawed gay marriage through legislation several years ago and that law didn’t seem to affect me in the same way the proposed constitutional amendment has. I think I’m only now beginning to sort it out.
The language of the amendment goes far beyond merely banning gay marriage. In effect, the amendment would prohibit “this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage,” thus the state would be barred from granting any legal protection or recognition to any sort of same sex relationship. In addition, the amendment is so broadly worded so as to make it possible for mutually agreed upon legal contracts (wills, power of attorney agreements, medical directives, etc.) to be challenged and quite possibly overturned. What’s left then, in a material sense, is that any relationship other than a single man/single woman partnership seeking legal protection must go to the trouble to hire a lawyer, spend hundreds (possibly thousands) of dollars to establish a set of legal rights far more limited than those granted through marriage (at the cost of $41.00 for a license), and then those legal rights could still be ruled null and void.
Despite these very real, material, functional repercussions of the amendment, they are not what disturb me most. I am most bothered by the idea that this ban is being entered into the state constitution. I have long valued the structure of a constitution as a framework for laws and social organization. I believe the US constitution fairly successfully functions as such, and should, rightfully so, be difficult to amend. As an American, I believe in the rights of justice, freedom (including the right to self-determination), and equality for and of all people, and it is a constitution’s job to protect these rights. By amending the Texas constitution to ban gay marriage, and for that matter any legal recognition of same sex partnerships, the state of Texas is building discrimination into its organizing document. This fact, above all else, disturbs me and frightens me.
How does one fight against this sort of discrimination? How can Texas, or any government and people, institutionalize injustice? How is it possible that some individuals (many in fact) can view my life and my partnership as threatening? How can those same people so easily and comfortably not only deny what I believe to be basic rights, but also make it impossible for individuals of the same sex to make agreements between themselves? What are our rights, then? If this is the environment I have to live in, then I don’t want to be here. But who wins then?
1 year ago
1 comment:
I suppose the only hope is in that the Texas Constitution, like the US Constitution, may be amended (and has--a lot). In the 1876 text, under Article VI: Suffrage, there is a list enumerating those not qualified to vote (included lunatics, paupers, felons, etc.) Women weren't even considered worthwhile enough to be listed as an unqualified citizen. Section 2 confirms that only males are qualified electors. Texans have a long and distinguished history of writing descrimination into their Constitution.
The US becomes more frightening all the time. But when will enough be enough? If and when Alito sits on the Court and is involved in overturning Roe, or rolling back important civil rights legislation, will the backlash finally come?
It is pernicious---and I'm SICK OF IT. But when some halfwit gets nervous when his check at Starbucks is $6.66---what freakin' hope do we have?
"Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass
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