Same-sex marriage

Bigotry, plain and simple: There’s no other way to define the July 6 ruling upholding blatant discrimination against same-sex couples by the highest court in New York State. The judges’ decision was more ideologically reactionary than the Georgia constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that passed the same day.

The New York judges’ majority ruling was bizarre, arguing that since opposite-sex couples can “accidentally” procreate, marriage provides stability to heterosexual parenting. Should the marriage certificate be replaced with a “parenthood license” that mandates heterosexual procreation?

And what about LGBT children? What about lesbian, gay, bi and trans parents?

The ruling added insult to injury by arguing that the discrimination was evenly spread across the board because heterosexuals couldn’t marry someone of the same sex, either.

The most potent poison at the root of the decision was the Noah’s Ark argument, based on “intuition” and “experience,” that heterosexuality is necessary for children to flourish.

Yet the June 29 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that overturned the only statewide ban on same-sex foster parenting based itself on the weight of scientific research that unambiguously states that overall, children fare just as well with same-sex as with opposite-sex parenting. That’s a powerful conclusion given the toll of oppression.

In reality, the New York judges tossed the decision on same-sex marriage back to legislators, who themselves see the issue as a hot political potato. The Repub lican Party has made a feint towards its own right wing about a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage rights, while Democrats are openly trying to defeat the demand state by state.

Presidential hopeful John Kerry publicly took that tack—and he’s a senator from the only state in which the grassroots struggle has won the right to same-sex marriage.

State discrimination denies more than 1,000 important economic and social rights to same-sex couples—from health insurance to Social Security, bereavement leave to tenant rights, child custody to foster parenting. The demand for same-sex marriage rights is a basic bourgeois democratic demand that opens up the potential for larger struggles and for a greater understanding of the reactionary societal role of the state machinery—the anti-LGBT Pentagon and cops, courts and prisons.

Which way forward to win this demand to end discrimination? The thousands who came out to protest on July 6, ang er ed by this court decision—from Manhat tan to Buffalo—demonstrated that this just demand will be won in the streets.