More than 60 Asian American organizations, ranging from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association to Filipinos for Affirmative Action, filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court in support of marriage equality on Sept. 26.
The brief was one of 30 “friend of the court” briefs filed by civil rights coalitions across the state in a legal case known as the California Marriage Cases, a consolidation of five lawsuits filed by same-sex couples seeking the right to marry.
Signed by the nation’s largest and most prominent Asian American civil rights groups, social service organizations and community coalitions, the brief urges the Supreme Court to hold that the state’s current law denying lesbian and gay persons the freedom to marry violates the California Constitution’s guarantee of equality.
Drawing from the Asian American community’s experience of exclusion and discrimination, the brief filed last week in San Francisco notes that “Asian Americans in this country are intimately familiar with the harms that marriage discrimination inflicts upon individuals, families and communities. … Since the beginning of Asian immigration to the United States and for much of the history of California, Asian American populations were denied the equality to marry.”
For example, the brief states, “marriage restrictions and related barriers to the formation of families, prevented the development of stable and growing Chinese American communities in the U.S., resulting instead in pockets of Chinese Americans who were isolated socially, politically and economically.”
Another example cited was how “laws against interracial marriage and other restrictions had the effect of fostering segregated Japanese American communities that were unable to integrate more broadly into society. This social isolation and relative lack of integration created a vulnerability that made possible the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.”
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down all anti-miscegenation laws in the nation in 1967.
But gender-based legal restrictions on marriage remain a battleground in all states except Massachusetts.
When Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, whose lawsuit is part of the California Marriage Cases, were married in San Francisco City Hall three years ago, they believed that society was finally recognizing what they’d known for more than 17 years — that they were in love and were indeed spouses in every sense of the word.
But their marital bliss was short-lived. In August 2004, the California Supreme Court annulled their marriage and those of more than 4,000 other same-sex couples, ruling that city officials had acted improperly in granting them licenses.
California law currently defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Karin Wang of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center said that the filing of the brief represents an unprecedented show of unity and support for equal marriage rights within the Asian American community.
“Together we want to send a strong message to the California Supreme Court that Asian Americans support a just and fair California for all members of the community,” Wang said.