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Two hundred years ago, nobody could ever imagine that blacks would be free. One hundred years ago, nobody thought that women should be allowed to vote. Fifty years ago, nobody thought that interracial marriage should be legal.
When thinking that these civil rights issues used to be controversial, it feels as though America must have been living in a dark age. Now, these issues are not even issues, they are commonplace in our culture. Most minority groups in America have had a civil rights movement, and most of these groups came out as victors. However, there is one group that has been fighting endlessly for decades to gain the common rights that everybody else has- marriage, healthcare, equality, the list goes on. I am speaking, of course, about the LGBT community.
Hundreds of Hoosier LGBT activists and supporters gathered last Monday at the Statehouse to protest the proposed SJR7 amendment. If passed, SJR7 will define marriage as a union between one man and one woman in the state of Indiana. Now, I know that after reading that last sentence, the readers of this article will automatically form into an “us and them” audience, but there is more to SJR7 than that.
This resolution would affect straight couples, too. The second line of SJR7 says that the “rights of marriage”, including domestic healthcare and domestic violence laws, will not apply to individuals who live together, but are not married.
If passed, SJR7 would be the first amendment that discriminates against groups of citizens.
Legislation similar to SJR7 has been passed in Ohio, Michigan, Utah and Kentucky, and the backlash has already been felt. Judges in Michigan and Utah ruled that, due to the wording of the documents, domestic violence protection did not apply to individuals who are not married. In Kentucky, legislature is being written that finds that domestic partnership health benefits could not be given to people who work at state universities.
SJR7 is on its way to becoming law here in Indiana. It only needs to be approved again by the House during this session to be put to the ballot in 2008.
I think it is sickening that of all the struggles people have gone through in our country’s history to obtain basic rights, people are still dying and fighting for them today. Have we learned nothing from these previous revolutions? How does it make sense to anybody that people be treated as second class citizens because of who they love? Put all your Bibles aside for this one; apparently, there is this imaginary thing called “separation of church and state.” Although it only seems like a figment of our imaginations, hopefully the events that occur next year will make that fantasy a reality.
Seriously, people, its 2007. Hating people for things they can’t control is so 1933 Germany. Get with the times - represent the struggle.
by Lindsay Palmer
Dawgnet Staff Writer
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