I Approve My Tax Dollars to do That: Make Gay Marriage Constitutional

One thing I’ve increasingly learned and appreciated is the art of timing. To get what you want, you have to balance a forceful push with consideration of current conditions and opinions. Decision makers have to be in a position where they can accept your proposition, whether that acceptance stem from external pressures generated by a majority or a change in personal conviction.

With Obama’s re-election, proponents of gay marriage have started to whisper about whether it’s time for the Supreme Court to finally take a stand on the issue. Moreover, time for the Supreme Court to declare the legitimacy of same-sex marriage through the smack down of California’s Proposition 8 and Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Valid point. I never okayed your marriage. You have no right to deem mine legal or not. 

Photo credit: http://harvardcrcl.org/2011/07/22/dojs-powerful-doma-brief-in-the-9th-circuit/

There are two potential decisions facing the Supreme Court. Though the two piggyback upon one another, the first is whether Congress can prevent legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New York, Vermont Washington, and Connecticut from receiving “federal benefits otherwise available to [heterosexual] married couples.” As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, this includes several aspects of reaping Social Security benefits. But the bigger issue relates to how the Constitution defines (or does not define) marriage. Does the Constitution allow for same-sex marriages or can it confine the legitimacy of marriage to only a man and a woman?

These graphs represents 2011 data illustrating how different age groups, ethnicies, educational backgrounds and genders support (blue) or oppose (yellow) the repeal of DOMA. In all categories, support for repeal outweighs opposition by approximately ten percentage points. I believe Americans are ready to make the change. 

Photo credit: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/doma-majorities-of-almost-every-demographic-support-repeal/legislation/2011/03/23/18226

Thirty-one states have prohibited gay marriage. While I do not agree with the decisions made by those thirty-one states, I concede that the Tenth Amendment gives them the right to do so. Neither my parents nor I have to live there.

This image is slightly inaccurate after the last election (Washington, Maine, and Maryland should be bright blue, Minnesota is no longer bright red and North Carolina did pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and thus should be bright red). My question to those who oppose gay marriage is how would allowing it negatively impact your life in any way, shape or form? How many same-sex couples do you know? Chances are, you know and are friends with them. Your children share a classroom with them. Why do you insist that these Americans be treated as second-class citizens? 

Photo credit: http://www.wingerjock.com/2012/09/30/the-invisible-minority-should-gays-be-featured-in-pro-gay-marriage-tv-spots/

That being said, I do not agree with the Supreme Court’s present silence on the issue. Thus far, the nine justices have not commented on whether they will accept a case. It is clear however from the results of the past election that the country is priming itself for change. Four years reversed Maine’s stance (in 2008, Maine residents shot down a proposition allowing for gay marriage; this year they passed it). Some of the very socially conservative states will never come around. They would not have integrated schools had the Fed not mandated them to. That’s why the Supreme Court needs to deem such prohibitions of gay marriage and DOMA unconstitutional.  It’s time. The country, though many may not initially like it, is ready. Such a case will not impact most Americans. For those it does impact, however, it will be revolutionary. Let’s legalize equality, once and for all.

I approve my tax dollars to do that: make gay marriage constitutional.