You Lose Some, You Lose Some

Two states had an opportunity today to legalize gay marriage...

...Both decided not to pull that controversial trigger.

First up, my home state of New York-

New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, has ruled against granting full marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples, PageOneQ has learned. Chief Justice Judith Kaye (right), an appointee of former Governor Mario Cuomo (D) and one other justice dissented in the opinion.

"We hold that the New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex. Whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the Legislature," the seventy page ruling begins...

A similar decision was also made in Georgia-

The highest courts in two states dealt gay rights advocates dual setbacks Thursday, rejecting same-sex couples' bid to win marriage rights in New York and reinstating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Georgia...

...In Georgia, where three-quarters of voters approved a ban on gay marriage when it was on the ballot in 2004, the top court reinstated the ban Thursday, ruling unanimously that it did not violate the state's single-subject rule for ballot measures. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the ballot language was misleading, asking voters to decide on same-sex marriage and civil unions, separate issues about which many people had different opinions...

Gay marriage, and homophobia being officially stigmatized by society, is inevitable. It will take time (and tolerance), but I believe that we will get there soon enough. When? I have no clue. 5 years? 10? 20? Hopefully not that long. It took a number of huge political events (the Montgomery bus boycott, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, President Kennedy sending the National Guard to stand down Gov. Wallace at the University of Alabama, Martin Luther King and the national movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, etc.) to get the country to desegregate and accept civil rights... and still the process was slow, taking many years. To this day, it is not complete. I do not believe this issue is exactly comparable with the race-based civil rights of the post-WWII era, but they do share one thing in common... a belief in equality for all citizens, regardless of their labels or differences.

So I am not impatient on the issue of equal rights for gays. In short, consider me frustrated, but optimistic. Massachusetts won't stand alone forever.