US: Gay marriage is now legal in all states
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33290341
Opinions, criticisms, and comments?
One step at a time. But a really big, important step.
I'd remove government from marriage entirely if it were up to me. But I also realize the impracticality of that stance in our current system. As such, this is great news.
TI's "true equality" may be functionally impossible in a technical sense. But I'll go ahead and agree with the spirit of it...that the breaking down of cultural animosities is the longer battle. But decisions like this one are proof that the struggle is slowly being won.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I hope you all realize this is not the end. There needs to be a constitutional amendment, or future legislation could undo this.
It's fairly difficult for a Supreme Court decision to be overturned.
The Constitution would need to be amended to indicate that marriage is only allowed between a man and woman, like GW Bush tried to do in all his great wisdom or the Supreme Court would have to undo the decision themselves.
So while it is possible it could be undone, there's still great reason to celebrate over another step towards equality.
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
This is good news, now we need to get rid of the words gay, straight, hetero, homo, black, white. Then we will have true equality.
That's the opposite of true.
People didn't talk about gayness for a long time. People argued against those trying to bring it to light, saying if they just stayed quiet, equality would happen. For decades, it didn't.
People then started bringing it up, bringing it to light. Showing what is already there, and showing people it's not bad.
Then change started happening. And the more people ignored the call to be quiet, the faster it happened. And that's how we got here today.
That's what worked with gay marriage. That's what worked with the black civil rights movement. That's how woman's suffrage worked. That is the only tactic that ever works- being quiet leads to problems being ignored, not solved. Being known is how improvement happens.
"Please don't talk about it," or "Acknowledging a difference is the real (racism/sexism/etc.)!" is a tactic used to stop change.
Bringing inequality to light is not the same as making it exist, it is merely showing what inequality already exists, and no matter how often those who don't want things to change and improve say it, acknowledging things is not the problem.
Removing labels from people is the way to reach true equality, regardless of what you think. Also removing labels does not ignore the problem. It addresses it head on. If all men and women are created equal, then why do they need to be labeled? This isn't the 60's and with all the recent stuff going on I think it could help. Why should someone be called a black man? Why not just a man? Or why when talking about a couple, does there need to be the label gay couple or straight couple. Just a couple sounds better and removes any negative connotation from past discrimination But hey we never agree so it don't matter.
Labels don't create inequality, though. Discriminatory labels do. Words can lose their negative connotation over time, even flip to a positive one. Removing prejudices surrounding them is the key, not removing the words themselves.
Try not to fight too hard, though. It sounds like you're getting at the same goal, just through different means.
Originally posted by Digi
Labels don't create inequality, though. Discriminatory labels do. Words can lose their negative connotation over time, even flip to a positive one. Removing prejudices surrounding them is the key, not removing the words themselves.
Yep. And if people try and remove the words that describe the prejudices, that protects the prejudice by making it hard to address.