MY SPEECH TO GAY MARRIAGE RALLY IN AUSTIN TODAY

I am not a fan of the institution of marriage. It has been a pretty oppressive institution, particularly to women. Plus, my parents were divorced and maybe shouldn’t have been married in the first place. But there are some really great marriages, and it is an institution that provides hundreds of privileges to couples. Marriage is not a place, like a school, but our struggle today is similar to the struggle for school desegregation last century because African-Americans weren’t just fighting for access to a building they were fighting for access to an education, the privileges that came with education, and the dignity of equality in the eyes of the law. I doubt I will ever get married, but I will fight for my right to marry.

So what legal reasons can be given to deny us that right?
o Perhaps it is that marriage is a privilege created for a man and a woman, not two men or two women. But then denying that right to same-sex couples is really a form of sex discrimination.
o I don’t think a court will accept the arguments that denying the right to marry is about conduct or procreation. It is true that gay couples can’t procreate, but not all straight couples can.
o Then there is a particular interpretation of the Christian bible that should be written into our law. It is a higher law, after all. That’s fine, so let it govern your life don’t force it upon everyone else. Separation of church and state.

There is no good legal argument against same-sex marriage, which is why the right wing wants to change the Constitution. There is no principle in the law that would deny marriage to gays, indeed the law gets in the way sometimes with all its talk of equal protection. So the right-wing wants to pull this principle out of their religion or out of their deepest insecurities and stick it in the Constitution.

Some people say they are trying to put morality in the law. But I think whether or not to allow gay marriage is a question of morality. I believe it is morally wrong to treat people as second-class citizens. It is morally right and just to expand and respect civil and human rights.

Opponents of gay marriage are clearly not supporting civil and human rights – that is irrefutable. There is nothing about denying equality to people that could be interpreted as favoring human rights.

But this fight for gay marriage is another in a series of struggles for equality that have gone on for a number of generations.

The movements for civil right for people of color that forced reform from above in Brown v Board. The fight for women’s equality that created a climate in this country that I believe helped win Roe v Wade.

It has been difficult, and there is SO much more work to do, but there is a wonderful history in this country and in this world of struggle followed by reform. Every time there was a major step forward there were laws to overcome and people who tried to slow progress or turn it back. But there were also people like us who pushed things forward and refused to compromise. That’s why we are on the right side of history and that’s why we need to be here today.