Bloomberg: Gay Marriage as Supreme Ruling Recalls Dred Scott, Selma
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases. One, from California, is brought by two couples challenging the legality of Proposition 8, an initiative passed by voters in November 2008 that banned same-sex marriage. The other case seeks to overturn a 1996 federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a heterosexual union. Under the statute, legally married gay couples aren’t entitled to the federal benefits other spouses receive.
The case the court will hear Tuesday stems from Riverside County, California, where Representative Mark Takano, a Democrat, became the state’s first openly gay member of Congress when he was elected in November. He quoted President Abraham Lincoln’s summation on changing public opinion on slavery --“He who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statute or pronounces decisions” -- as applicable to the gay rights struggle.
“It strikes me as if this court fails to move forward, we will see a Dred Scott moment where a huge part of the country just rejected outright the decision of the Supreme Court,” said Takano, referring to an 1857 ruling upholding slavery that drew public outrage from abolitionists in Northern states.
If the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in favor of same sex marriage, Lewis said, the movement won’t relent.
“What happened in Selma and the march on Washington 50 years ago, and now, the issue of same sex marriage, all of this is coming together as one struggle, one movement,” he said. “It will not stop. It’s the flow of history.”