The Wisconsin State Legislature passed an amendment last spring banning same-sex marriages. Pending a second approval by the Legislature this fall, Wisconsin residents could be voting on the amendment as soon as April.
The amendment’s motive is in stark contrast to our founding father’s intended purpose of the Constitution – to uphold rights and liberties. The only other attempt in recent history to reverse its role was the shameful attempt at prohibition in 1920.
| The Issue Wisconsin soon may vote on a Constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. |
“It would be the first time the Wisconsin Constitution was amended to single out one group of people and take away their freedoms,” Christopher Ott, Executive Director of Action Wisconsin, said in Monday’s issue of The Spectator.
Aside from the social alienation of same-sex couples, this amendment would effectively keep them from the financial and healthcare benefits that go along with a marriage license. Literally thousands of tax breaks are available to married couples that are unavailable to unmarried couples. Without a marriage license, partners do not have the right to 24-hour hospital visitation or the right to approve emergency surgery.
This homophobia has no place in politics and surely no place in the Constitution, where it would sit in writing alongside such triumphs in the name of equality as women’s suffrage, the end of slavery and our Bill of Rights. It’s horrendous to think we as a society have learned the error of our ways when it comes to segregation and gender discrimination, but remain adamantly bonded to the idea that homosexuals are second-class citizens.
Let’s face it: Homosexuality is a fact of human life. It’s here, it always has been here, and it always will be here. Indeed, it’s likely the number of openly gay people will continues to grow as society (outside the realm of politics) continues to work toward tolerance. In time, these people will gain their freedoms, and our children will learn about these days of gay-rights resistance much like we learn about the segregation and discrimination that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Needless to say, we will be ashamed.
