Stop with the lawsuits! You’ve only got nine days to go! In order to help push through the final stages of the new law allowing same-sex marriage, nine major gay rights orgainzations have asked couples to not to take legal action against the courts and to have some patience. Many couples are pushing to have their marriages recognized, and rightly so, but their eagerness may cause the entire deal to lead to a ruling against same sex marriage which may take years to overturn.
In an unusual six-page memorandum, written for same-sex couples, groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Lambda Legal warned that lawsuits would invite “bad” court rulings that could take years to overturn.
“Bad rulings will make it much more difficult for us to win marriage, and will certainly make it take much longer,” the memo said.
Legal experts said the statement appeared to be an effort by groups who have successfully fought for gay marriage in California to maintain control of the litigation and reflected a fear that much of the rest of the country is not yet ready to embrace marriage for gay men and lesbians.
For many people, it’s hard to understand why gay marriage isn’t already legal and why others are so afraid of it. Sadly, we have to remind ourselves that only California and Massachusetts have approved gay marriage, while twenty-seven other states have banned in. Although we wish we could stand alone at an independent state:
“Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to rule on whether states have to recognize same-sex marriages from Massachusetts and California,” said Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky. “What they want is to postpone that as long as possible because attitudes are changing quickly, and the more marriage equality gets entrenched, the more it is going to be widely accepted.”
Right now, even though many activists want to scream and many same sex couples are getting angry that their marriages still are not recognized, everyone has to stay calm because one wrong move can result in a major step backward.
If the U.S. Supreme Court considered the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage in other states, the current court would likely split 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy being an unpredictable swing vote, some scholars believe.
Gay rights groups aren’t ready yet to take that risk.
The goal now should not be to make a huge deal about this but to focus on the main goal, getting same-sex marriage accepted into our state and then slowly let others follow. It’s a bigger deal for some states than it is for others, but if California can show them how it can be done, then in time it won’t be such a big deal for others.
Hoping to forestall such lawsuits, the advocacy groups promised that in a few years, same-sex marriage “won’t seem like such a big jump” for courts and legislatures. In the meantime, the groups warned that court losses in marriage cases could reverberate into employment, adoption and custody law for gay people.
Instead of suing, same-sex couples should work against the California anti-gay marriage ballot measure and promote marriage rights in conversations with friends, co-workers, neighbors and employers, the statement said.
“With the victories in Massachusetts and California, we should be able to win marriage more quickly in other states,” the statement said. “But we have to lay the groundwork.”
Photo by bobster1985
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