Extending liberty as was intended
Seven years. That’s all it took to go from gay marriage being illegal in 48 states to it being legal in 50 states.
That rapid conversion was dismaying to religious conservatives and, truthfully, a bit unsettling even to some who ultimately agreed with the trend. But with the Supreme Court ruling Friday that the 14th Amendment protects gay couples from marriage discrimination, it now seems like a transformation that was inevitable all along.
Why? Because Friday’s ruling was not merely a victory for same-sex couples. It was a victory for anyone who believes in an America that continually strives to live up to its founding creed, that all people are created equal. It was a victory for anyone who believes that all people have worth and dignity, regardless of sexual orientation. It was a victory for those who believe that humanity continues to evolve into a better state. The petitioners sought equal treatment, nothing more.
“It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority. “Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
Marriage has long been regarded as a union of one man and one woman, and opponents argued that the court had no business changing that established definition. Kennedy powerfully addressed that notion as well.
“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
That was reminiscent of the Thomas Jefferson quote inscribed on his monument: “But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”
Opponents will decry five justices putting their definition ahead of that of millions of Americans who have voted otherwise, including on North Carolina’s Amendment One. But that, of course, is what the high court is in part designed to do: protect the minority in a republic from discrimination by the majority.
“The idea of the Constitution ‘was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy,’” Kennedy wrote, quoting an earlier opinion. “This is why ‘fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
The battle now will surely turn to religious freedom. The majority went out of its way to emphasize that the First Amendment protects those whose religious beliefs conflict with this new reality. That will be all the fuel N.C. legislators need to continue their defense of a new law allowing magistrates and registers of deeds to recuse themselves from involvement in gay marriage. That might work its way up the judicial branch as well. We would note that the majority said, even as it defended religious freedom, that the state cannot bar same-sex couples from marriage “on the same terms” as heterosexual couples.
Gays in America can still be discriminated against legally in various ways. Surely the day will come when that too will change. For now, let’s be content to celebrate the nation’s latest expansion of equality and liberty on this one fundamental front.
This story was originally published June 26, 2015 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Extending liberty as was intended."