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I just read this on the Netscape homepage about a New York court ruling against gay marriage:
The decision was 4-2, with the chief justice dissenting. The majority decision was based on the idea that gay couples do not have a demonstrable history of marrying, therefore stopping them from doing so cannot violate their inalienable civil rights.
That is the most disingenuous, patently absurd, circular reasoning ever. Of course they don't; women didn't have a history as enfranchised, slaves in the South didn't have a history of freedom --it doesn't mean I should still be without a vote or legally able to buy another human being.
Things change. Rights do, too, civil or otherwise. I don't believe in basic, inalienable rights; the universe doesn't give them. None of us have a 'right' to life or any of the trimmings; it doesn't work that way. Tell a famine victim that they have a right to be fed and they'll still have an empty belly.
But when we, as a species, recognise an injustice, it's down to us for the sake of our own self-respect, to do what we can to make it better, make it fair.
The decision was 4-2, with the chief justice dissenting. The majority decision was based on the idea that gay couples do not have a demonstrable history of marrying, therefore stopping them from doing so cannot violate their inalienable civil rights.
That is the most disingenuous, patently absurd, circular reasoning ever. Of course they don't; women didn't have a history as enfranchised, slaves in the South didn't have a history of freedom --it doesn't mean I should still be without a vote or legally able to buy another human being.
Things change. Rights do, too, civil or otherwise. I don't believe in basic, inalienable rights; the universe doesn't give them. None of us have a 'right' to life or any of the trimmings; it doesn't work that way. Tell a famine victim that they have a right to be fed and they'll still have an empty belly.
But when we, as a species, recognise an injustice, it's down to us for the sake of our own self-respect, to do what we can to make it better, make it fair.