Remember the Fourteenth Amendment

Does anybody remember the term "separate but equal?" That seems to be the argument for Proposition 8, which adds a line to the California State Constitution that says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Proponents of Prop 8 state that gay couples will continue to have the rights associated with marriage because of the domestic partnership laws, but they shouldn't be able to call it marriage. Black people had drinking fountains that were supposed to work the same as the ones for white people. Proponents of Prop 8 say that the California Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriage goes against the will of the people. The people didn't vote to end racial segregation in the United States. The Supreme Court ended it. If it were left to the will of the people, black people would still have to sit in the back of the bus in the South.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution states the following:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

All persons. The constitution only separates citizens from non-citizens. It makes no other distinction. Equal protection of the laws. The only way to ensure equal protection is to subject every person to the same laws. The civil rights movement demonstrated that separate is not equal, no matter what you call it. What crimes have gay couples committed that would allow the State to abridge their rights without violating the US Constitution? And leave God and the Bible out of this. This is a matter of state, not church.

Read my other column about same-sex marriage by clicking here.