(no subject)

[primroseburrows]

Somebody try and tell me how this is anything but wonderful.

The pages take a while to load, especially for dialup, but look at all of them. Spend time on the pictures of the kids and the wedding with Gramma with her walker looking on, and tell me you don't get just a little bit teary.

History is being made, and I'm thrilled to be watching it.

As much as I love Massachusetts (it's my home state!), and celebrate what they've done, it's only fitting that San Francisco should take the ball and run with it.

Oh, Harvey, you must be overcome with joy. *Dances like Snoopy*

Thanks to titti for the link.

Comments

Here's the thing...

[peacey.livejournal.com]

Whether or not it is a good or bad thing that is going on in San Francisco, one thing has to be addressed. After a marriage license is recorded by county officials, it is sent to the state Office of Vital Records. A ballot initiative approved by voters in 2000 said the state would only recognize marriages between a man and a woman. It rankles me no end that the mayor of San Francisco has apparently anointed himself King and chosen to ignore the vote of the people. It wouldn't matter what law he chose to ignore - any action wherein the law is disregarded is wrong and the voters should be outraged. No one - NO ONE - is above the law. NO ONE has the right to disregard the law because they don't like it. If you don't like it, work to change it. But ultimately the will of the majority of the people must be respected.

Yeah, but...

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I kind of think of it as an act of civil disobedience, in an offshoot of Ghandi and MLK. Non-violent to the extreme. The good feedback has consisted of cheers and roses for these people. The bad feedback is in the form of court cases, some of which may go to the US Supreme Court and let them decide.

It'll also take some of these cases to the US Supreme Court.

Think of it this way: If the right to interracial marriage had been left to the majority of the people, would it have been made legal? What about Brown vs. Board of Education? I can't imagine either one of these would have, especially not in the South of the 1960's. The Jim Crow laws were repealed because people started breaking them. If left to a referendum, there would still be separate drinking fountans and separate schools, and interracial couples wouldn't have their civil right to marry.

IMO, this is a civil rights issue as well, and the people who are fighting for it are working as hard as Martin Luther King, Jr. did. His battle isn't over yet, and neither is this one by a long shot. But acts of civil disobedience are how this country started in the first place.

Of course, this is all my opinion. I don't have a law degree, I'm not a politician, and I'm not nearly as brave as these guys are. *wry smile*

Re: Yeah, but...

[peacey.livejournal.com]

I don't really see it as a civil "rights" issue because there is no "right" to marry in the Constitution. Interracial marriage was never illegal as such on a national scale (unless a law existed back during slavery days), though I'm not sure if there were ever state-issued laws against it. As for civil disobedience within the United States, count me as not in favor of it on any scale, on any stage, for any cause. I have little patience with people in this country who break the law as a means for changing it. There are avenues to pursue to make your case heard, to get publicity that injustices need that are in no way, shape, or form illegal. I'll say it again: if you don't like the law, take *legal* action to change it. Though you may not respect this law or that law, you must respect that it *IS* the law and work around it to change it. Anything less would result in anarchy.

The opening up of the world to mass communication & news "on tap" 24 hours a day has done much to educate people to injustices that still exist. Few societies are still closed (though there are definitely still some out there). People are much more enlightened than they used to be as a whole back when segregation was the rule. The very passage of time and this opening up of the world would have brought about the elimination of the evil of segregation.

I do believe that things happen when they are supposed to happen. To force something before its time is to cement its fate. No matter what you feel about gay marriage, this country as a whole is not ready for it yet. An issue as foreign as this to so many people cannot be shoved down the collective throats of the citizens. Give it time to be digested in small doses. Do not force the issue. Years ago when I was younger it was considered taboo just to see two men or two women walking down the street hand in hand. Now, even in the Midwest, most people don't bat an eye. All it will take for gay marriage to be accepted is time.

I understand the point, but...

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I really do believe that without Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, the movement for African-American equality wouldn't have happened. Rosa broke the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man. I'm curious (I'm not flaming, love, I'm really curious) to get your opinion on whether you think that this was a wrong thing to do based on your opinion that breaking a law is not a way to change it. Do you think that we'd have the changes we do now if it weren't for the Gandhian civil disobedience methods of Rosa, MLK, and the Freedom Riders of the sixties? It's veering off-subject a bit, but I'd really like to know your opinion about this.

Re: I understand the point, but...

[peacey.livejournal.com]

Amendment to stated opinion:

If a state's law breaks national law and thus infringes on Constitutionally guaranteed individual rights, then I have no problem with civil disobedience since it is the *state* breaking the law and not the protesting individual. As I said, no one is above the law; no one individual and no governing body.

Re: I understand the point, but...

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if there was anything on the books that made Alabama law at the time of the boycott uncompliant with national law (anyone else know? patchfire?. There could have been; my knowledge of national or state laws of the time is teeny-tiny. I do know that Rosa, MLK, and others spent time in jail for what they did. I'm pretty sure it was for breaking state law, which takes me right back to not knowing what the national law was at the time (Oh, great, now I've gotta go do Research! ;))

At any rate, I do see your point. My opinion is that nonviolent civil disobedience has changed things for the better in most cases. The second something becomes violent, though (for example, the violent protests at the WTO), forget it. Gandhi and King proved that it just doesn't have to come to people getting hurt.

Nat'l law...

[patchfire.livejournal.com]

Segregation was upheld in the Dred Scott decision in 1896 as acceptable under the U.S. Constitution. I believe the specific challenge was to Jim Crow laws in a one state of a few; after that, they were passed in nearly every state. So segregation was considered acceptable at the state and federal level when the bus boycott began.

As an aside... I didn't learn for many years about a school outside Chattanooga (where I grew up!) that had 'training' courses and the like for people challenging these laws. The Highlander School, I think. Anyway, Rosa Parks was a 'graduate,' and the attitude that she was just some random woman who just 'was tired' is false; she knew exactly what she was doing and what she might be provoking. Go her. :)

Sing, "Rosa, she called to me..."

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

the attitude that she was just some random woman who just 'was tired' is false; she knew exactly what she was doing and what she might be provoking. Go her. :)

Oh, she knew exactly what she was doing, and what it would set off. *loves*

Must. Get. A Rosa. Icon.

[patchfire.livejournal.com]

I was lying in bed last night and was suddenly overcome with shame & embarassment. The Supreme Court case in 1896 that said segregation & Jim Crow were okay was not Dred Scott; that was 1856 and the Fugitive Slave Act. The case in 1896 was Plessy v. Ferguson. *hopes Donna Miller NEVER trolls LJ and finds this*

Sadly...

[patchfire.livejournal.com]

The country wasn't ready for integration when it happened. But it had to happen, and acceptance followed. There's a 1946 Supreme Court opinion I've seen quoted recently, and I can't find the reference, but it essentially says that civil rights are not under the purview of voters, to protect people from the tyranny of the majority.

MLK Jr. said it well. Just put in 'homophobia' for 'segregation.' "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is not the time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregatio to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood."

Forgive the long quote, but it makes the point well. Segregation would still be alive and well in many parts of the US if not for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Wait. Actually, it still is alive and well, if you get far enough away from the urban areas. There are places not that far from Memphis, TN where racial slurs are acceptable bathroom graffiti, and no effort is made to remove them. The world wouldn't change; sometimes people have to be leaders, and pull everyone else along - even if they're kicking and screaming.