To the Justices of California’s Supreme Court:
This is a joint letter from a heterosexual woman and a gay woman. We’re writing today as sisters for a cause.
As a straight woman and a woman of color, it was unnervingВ for me to watch yesterday’s proceedings in the state’s Supreme Court, hearing the arguments to overturn Proposition 8. My sense of unease was not because I felt in any way that testing the constitutional limits of what the voters approved was wrong. It was because we were trying the constitutionality of a referendum that should never have happened in the first place.
I am the child of immigrants. A first generation American born and raised in California. More than 10 years before I was born, my uncle and aunt had to cross the state’s border to get married. He was Filipino and my aunt a Caucasian woman from Arkansas. Anti-miscegenation laws prevented them from being married in California.
Fortunately, with the repeal of miscegenation laws, first in the state and thenВ across the country, their marriage was validated. They stayed married for nearly 60 yearsВ separated only by death, less than a year apart. What makes my uncle and aunt’s desire to be married in the days of state’s miscegenation laws is no different than what same-sex couples are contending with Defense of Marriage laws across the country. What gives the states the right to dictate who gets to marry?
In yesterday’s Prop 8 hearing, Ken Starr argued that the people have the right to dictate who gets to marry whom. The rule of the people is “sovereign,” he stated, “even when they are unwise.” Even if they vote to take away the rights of all minorities, the Supreme Court should not intervene. Unless the ruling would enact “far reaching change in the structure of government,” California’s Supreme Court cannot get involved. With this perspective, it would be perfectly legal to impose, with a majority ballot vote: slavery in California, segregation, internment camps, anti-miscegenation laws, job discrimination based on race, ethnicity or gender — the list goes on.
“Every civil rights group sided [with same-sex couples and LGBT advocacy groups],” Jon Davidson of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund explained in last night’s teleconference.
So Prop 8 isn’t just about marriage equality in California, it’s about civil rights for minority groups and the right of the majority to legislate against a minority group when the legislative change will not affect them personally.
This is where my unease begins and where I must stand with all my gay brothers and sisters who want to enjoy the same right to choose the kind of legal relationship they want to have. They deserve that as individuals and human beings with free will and choice. Just like my aunt and uncle.
I also send this letter as a reminder to my brothers and sisters who are straight and married who have experienced or have family who have experienced the kind of prejudice my uncle and aunt faced in their time, until it ended finally with the California Supreme Court’s decision in 1948, ruling miscegenation laws unconstitutional.В В
Where else will the state initiative process go to stop the state from applying similar rules against you orВ me in the future on our personalВ choice for relationship? Or where we send our children to school? Or where we go to get health care? Or allow us a path to citizenship? How far will theВ exclusion of one minority group go to stripВ them of their right to co-exist on the same ground with equal footing as the rest? When we will stop letting discomfortВ with people who areВ different than us ruleВ how we let others choose to live their lives?
We ask that you consider the past to rule on the present. The message we send across the country goes not just to same sex couples but to everyone. As a state that prides itself on its progressive values, we need to step forward, not back.В
Fe Bongolan
Rachel Asher
I keep wondering why none of the prop 8 discussions mention the supposed separation between church and state…If any church wants to participate financially in politcal issues, fine, but they should give up their tax exemption status to do so in my opinion. It would certainly be a boost for our national deficit if we collected taxes on all that property and income.
victoria. . .thanks for keeping it real! Where DO you get your gift of humur from?
fe. . .we are the little engine that could .. .I think I can, I think I can. .
kristenb. .always a thinking woman! Thanks for your observations, and for the link. I remember Maya del Mar saying about Juno that she was the voice of the disenfranchised (paraphrased), and used her transiting aspects as examples during the earlier immigrant demonstrations.
loveyourdesign . . .love IS a beautiful thing. Thanks for expressing your feelings.
victoria:
Right on both counts. The guy is very busy.
Or was ken starr concerned about hillary’s 100 grand. Seems like a small amount now, doesn’t it?
This thing is going to end up being judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court eventually.
Is this the ken starr of the ‘did or did not bill clinton touch monica’s breast while she was giving him a blow job’ fame? He’s the gift that just keeps on giving. I think his bloodline should not be allowed to reproduce.
bk and fe: and juno has been in bed with jupiter these last many weeks now pulling away slowly; juno was independent, a modern woman before getting married, something lost i feel in the “bone of contention” interp being focused upon jupiter’s trysts when maybe the bone is about juno being free prior to marriage, but not so free afterwards?! what would jupiter have done to juno had she been just as randy? demetra george also has a nice positive, working spin on juno… check out http://www.astrocom.com/articles/infospecials/IASTERX.pdf for all the info, but here is her take on alt uses of juno energies, and they are right in line with what’s happening:
dissolving illusion of
ego separateness, “I
don’t need anyone else”
attitude, advocate for
women’s rights in
economic/political/
educational/sports
arenas, enlarged scope
of intimate relationships,
gay/lesbian,
cutting through jealousy
& attachments in
relationships, creating
new forms of relating,
tantric sexual practices
bk:
THANK YOU for the astrological insight. I’ve been feeling the bridge needing to be built, and its no risk for me to lay down the planks to begin. So here I am, laying down ten good feet of 2 x 6, ready to start…
Juno, the Roman goddess and patroness of marriage, is and has been in a square to her Greek counterpart, Hera, as transiting astroids in the sky. Squares being what they are, this one seems to reveal that (at this time anyway) not everybody sees marriage the same way. By strange coincidence, both these goddesses guarded over the finances of their empires. Presently, the arguing over finances and how or if they should be spent, shows us that this too is viewed in different ways. Ironically, Juno is on the ascendant of the president’s natal chart, so he is experiencing these challenges on a personal level I would imagine.
On another note, I stumbled on to Eric’s wonderful “How to Build a Bridge” piece through another blog, and was fascinated with the syncronicity of what he wrote then and what is happening now. His description of the steps involved in creating a bridge, ie. “you must cross the space (the bridge will span) in your mind first”, and “You must find people who will cooperate; who are not afraid of heights or of going beneath the river, or the riverbed; you must be resourceful. But most of all you and the people working on your bridge need to have faith.”
Since Chiron and the centaurs represent a bridge from Saturn to an outer planet, his story graphically depicts the process we are just beginning . . to get from “this side” to the “other side”. He refers to the “other side” as 2012 and beyond, but it could just as easily be about where our country is now in it’s beliefs, values, infrastructure, institutions, etc., and where we will be able to cross over to after the bridge is completed. Chiron (and Nessus) in the thick of the recent Aquarian assembly will facilitate this process as he raises the awareness of our countrymen and leaders. In his style it will be done slowly but relentlessy.
As I noted last month, Pholus was conjunct the Moon in the Stimulus Plan chart, and he moves much more quickly. Already we are seeing evidence of the financial help cities are getting, such as in Columbus Ohio’s (my hometown!) federal financing to hire the new policemen seen on tv today. Here too the bridge concept is apt, but it will take “people who will cooperate” and people who will keep the faith, and people who are not afraid of heights or depths.
This made me cry for the simple reason that what’s being discussed here is the right to love without fear.