Marriage Equality: Let Love Be

"No one knows for certain how the arguments...will go, nor do we know how the Supreme Court will rule in June. But we  know that the day will soon come when LGBT individuals, couples, and families are equally protected under the law. We know it won't be long until we are fully and wholly included in the lofty American ideals of liberty and justice for all. And we know that we will win this fight." 

  John Becker, "The Weight of History: Marriage Equality before the Supreme Court,"
 Huffpost, 27 March 2012.

(www.hrc.org)

John Becker of the Huff Post is right: It's just a matter of time.  Like the century-long struggles for equality for women and African-Americans, it's about completing the American civil rights agenda. 

If you are a man and a woman over-55 and want to get married, but not have children, is it against the law?  Is "marriage" by definition only between a man and a woman, more specifically a  heterosexual couple who want children? Fertility tests required?  Judge Sotomayor has asked some of these kinds of questions about the gay marriage cases now before the Supreme Court.

For me the main question is:  Aren't all Americans equal under the law? Why is the government in the marriage business at all?   Aren't all Americans guaranteed "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" by the Constitution, including the 14th amendment, which as I understand it applies to everything and everyone, animate and inanimate?

Let the angels do their work. People fall in love, want to make a commitment, get married, so be it.  Do it. And hope, I guess, that you don't fall under the marriage/divorce ratio ramped up by heterosexual couples. As for families, some of the most loving families I know, and the most stable, are gay and lesbian couples, many of whom have been together a long time, are raising children who are wanted and thriving, and lead happy middle-class lives. Why in the world treat them like  3rd-class citizen without rights, discriminate against them, and then create ridiculous arguments for maintaining such injustice? 

I don't know if the Supreme Court will move on marriage equality and the (archaic) definitions of marriage yet (born in the days of primogenitor and concern with the transfer of property, as I see it, more about property than what Fox's Bill O'Reilly calls Bible-thumping).   But I do think public opinion is way ahead of the Supreme Court and the courts, and Congress and state legislators.  The Gen X-Y-Zers don't care; they have real issues to worry about, like the economy and jobs, education and housing. Families, they know, most from experience, come in all kinds of configurations.

Human beings are wonderfully diverse. All Americans have equal rights protected under the Constitution. It's a free country.  Let love reign. Let equality and justice reign.