Bigotry Still A Barrier To Same-Sex Marriage

I am reminded of how frustrating it can be to await the arrival of an idea whose time needs to come. Last week, the First Circuit declared part of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional on equal protection grounds because DOMA denies married same-sex couples federal benefits available to married heterosexual couples. While an important victory, it saddened (but did not surprise) me that the court carefully disclaimed the notion of a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage. This was due, in part, to the limited issues in the case, but due also, I fear, to the possibility of a negative backlash if the court had gone further — if the court had gone as far as equal justice under the law will someday demand America does as a country.

Make no mistake about it: Marriage equality is the great civil rights issue of our time and it will be to our everlasting shame as a country if we do not soon make what is true in Connecticut true everywhere. There are few things as fundamental to our ordered notion of liberty — to steal a phrase from another constitutional context — as the right to marry, and to have the state sanction that relationship. Tangible benefits aside (tax status, insurance benefits, control over health decisions for one’s spouse), according second-class status, or, even worse, no status at all, to the union that defines most adults’ lives — gay or straight — sends the same pernicious message that “separate, but equal” did for African Americans under Jim Crow.