In response to Debra Saunders’ recent column, “Marriage rights for gays won’t be won through stunts”: Saunders tries to hide her glee that the California Supreme Court ruled that Justice Ron George had illegally allowed 4,000-plus same-sex marriages in California. She claims that “Gay advocates may respond that their entitlements to equal rights is so strong that they need not worry about process. They note that black civil rights leaders engaged in civil disobedience, thus they equate San Francisco’s same-sex marriages to Rosa Parks on a bus.”
But, she says, it’s just not the same because gays have always been able to vote and to enjoy other civil rights. So, if you always had the right to vote, then you always had civil rights?
Even women in this country haven’t always enjoyed voting rights. And civil disobedience has always been a powerful vehicle for the oppressed (in terms of voting or other civil rights). In the 1872 presidential election, Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined for voting unlawfully. And we can thank her and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for their perseverance and their civil disobedience for giving all women the right to vote today. If not for them, we women might have remained at the mercy of our state lawmakers to decide what is right for us and what is wrong.
Saunders claims she was among the minority who voted in favor of same-sex marriage in California, saying, “I believe in love and marriage. As far as I am concerned, if a gay and lesbian couple want to wed, more power to them.” But acceptance does not equal agreement. She may not really care if gays and lesbians marry, but she doesn’t support their marriages either. And to me, that says a lot. Call it what you want, but discrimination and intolerance is easily justified by laws that need to be challenged through acts of civil disobedience.
Susan Gregerson
Edmonds
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