Hi Xericx, you keep arguing that discriminating against gays in marriage is different from the old "separate but equal" doctrine in racial segregation because there is no tangible harm; in other words, the old Jim Crow system was worse, in your eyes, because blacks were deprived from access to tangible things like the front of the bus, water fountains, etc. Gays today, meanwhile, as you see it, are being deprived merely of the intangible status of being able to say they are married.
But you should go back and read the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board. (Link:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html )
The argument that the Court made in overturning the doctrine of "separate but equal" was precisely the one that defenders of gay rights are making today, and the one that you are arguing against: that it was the *intangible* harm and psychological damage done by singling out one minority group within society for separate treatment that was the problem, *not* the tangible damage of being deprived from access to better water fountains or whatever.
Brown v Board said:
We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does....
To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:
Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.
If you swap out "negro" for "gay", and "schools" for "marriage", I think you'll see where those of us who are dismayed by Prop 8 are coming from. You don't have to agree with us, of course, but you should know that the arguments we're making linking gay marriage to civil rights really are rooted in a long historical tradition.
And don't even get me started on miscegenation law, Loving v. Virginia, and other travesties in our very recent past related to marriage in particular. The only thing that makes me feel better about my fellow Californians taking a dump on the Constitution and the gay community on Tuesday is that I'm pretty sure we'll look back on this vote in 30 years with exactly the same shame and embarrassment that we now see when we look back at defenders of anti-miscegenation laws in the 1960s. There was no reason besides tradition and bigotry to oppose interracial marriage then, and there's no reason besides tradition and bigotry for us to oppose gay marriage now. As a straight person in a long-term interracial relationship, I can't even imagine the state telling me that I have no right to marry my girlfriend just because her ancestors came from a different continent than mine. Yet 40 years ago that was the law. Why we straight people would today go out of our way today to discriminate against other people who are doing us no harm whatsoever, to stamp on them "the badge of inferiority" -- to quote Plessy v. Ferguson -- by singling them out for separate and unequal treatment, is beyond me.
The arguments made today by foes of gay marriage are exactly the same as the arguments made by foes of miscegenation back then. These marriages are unnatural! They are against God's plan! They violate traditional social order!
It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.
SR
