We Have Won Before and Will Win Again
March 19, 2004
Thursday’s California Supreme Court ruling has put a halt to our efforts to issue same-sex marriage certificates for now, but we should not be deterred from our efforts to end discrimination against gay and lesbian families. Marriage has long been a flashpoint for the expansion of liberty in the United States. Forty-six years ago, in Perez v. Sharp, the California Supreme Court ruled that a white woman and an African American man had the right to marry. Almost 20 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
Today, California is once again at the forefront of an effort to extend liberty, challenging injustice and discrimination against gay and lesbian families.
It’s been a month since I had the honor of officiating the first same-sex civil marriage ceremony, that of Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83. Phyllis and Del are celebrating their 51st anniversary this year. Why should the state and federal government refuse to recognize their marriage, which symbolizes their love and commitment to each other? Why should anyone deny them the right to marry? This is an issue of fundamental fairness that has been fought on many fronts by citizens interested in having our nation live up to its highest ideals of liberty and equality under the law.
Debates over basic issues of fairness are familiar to many of us and are critical to the advancement of society. From an Asian Pacific American perspective, our community fought long and hard for access to public education, when Chinese parents sued the San Francisco Unified School District for denying non-English speaking students equal educational opportunities. In 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Lau v. Nichols decision, ruling that the district violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying Chinese-speaking students meaningful access to public education. Lau v. Nichols was instrumental in establishing bilingual education, which opened the doors of education to the children of immigrants throughout the nation.
Similarly, Japanese American citizens fought a long battle for redress and reparations for their internment during World War II. In February 1942, 120,000 Japanese American citizens were uprooted and interned because they were of Japanese decent. After many years, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that the internment of Japanese Americans was based on “racial prejudice” and a “failure of political leadership,” which led to a presidential apology and financial redress.
The nation learned from the African American community’s long struggle for civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it aptly when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law after many years of non-violent civil disobedience, and protests convinced the nation that it was time to live up to its promises of equal justice under the law.
Now our brothers and sisters in the lesbian and gay community are standing up for their fundamental right to marry and to be treated the same as their straight counterparts. With allies and families standing with them, the LGBT community will win this struggle for fairness, just as other groups of citizens have won before them.
I am proud that San Francisco is leading America in the ongoing effort to break down institutionalized discrimination. Our actions will inspire other cities and states to address discrimination and recognize same-sex marriages. Forward-looking leaders in Massachusetts, New York and Oregon have already begun by taking measures to end marriage discrimination against same-sex families in their jurisdictions.
Mayor Newsom should be commended for his courage in taking this bold step to provide gays and lesbians the right to marry. City Attorney Dennis Herrera should be recognized for his zealous defense of our right to challenge the institutionalized discrimination against gay and lesbian families.
The moving sight of gay and lesbian families lining up to marry has made an indelible mark on the conscience of our nation. What the leadership of San Francisco has done is extend an existing fundamental right of American citizenship to another minority group as a matter of policy and practice. The long day that started on February 12 has forever changed our city, our government and our families, and is moving “the arc of the moral universe” a bit closer toward justice.
Mabel Teng is San Francisco’s Assessor-Recorder.
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