Last Friday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider two cases on same-sex marriage. If our wonderful nation is lucky, their decision, or decisions, may take this subject off the front pages at long last and relegate it to religious columnists and letters to the editor, where it belongs.
One of the cases comes from California where Theodore B. Olson and David Boies filed an action asking that the right to marry should be constitutional and should apply to all citizens, regardless of gender or state laws.
The court could rule in favor of Olson and Boies and end the argument. Or it could rule that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and that the question must be resolved by the states.
At present, eight states give gay and lesbian couples all of the benefits and responsibilities of marriage — but withhold the name, marriage. They are California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.
The other case it accepted considers the less sweeping question of whether the federal government can discriminate against same-sex couples married in those states where their marriages are allowed.
In our nation of written laws, the institution of marriage grants privileges and establishes responsibilities. A husband must be allowed to see his wife in the hospital. Each of a married couple is responsible under the law for the other. Married couples find it much easier in most states to adopt a child than do same-sex couples or singles. The law, in short, discriminates between married and unmarried couples in these and other ways.
That is the reason for the lawsuits and one of the reasons why a growing majority of U.S. citizens under 40 favor legalizing same-sex marriage nationally and why a majority of voters in at least eight states have done so.
The other reason is that treating all people alike is a good thing to do.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
