Random Wednesday ~ one man, one woman

‘Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.’ ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy (American 35th US President, 1917-1963)

‘I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.’ ~ Coretta Scott King (American activist, author and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1927-2006)

‘Before we can study the central issues of life today, we must destroy the prejudices and fallacies born of previous centuries.’ ~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (Russian novelist and philosopher, 1828-1910)

Within my own lifetime it was once illegal for a couple of mixed races to marry. Today that concept is almost unheard of. No state or federal law would challenge, based solely on race, whether two adults ~ one white, one African American, or Asian, or Hispanic ~ could marry, and become husband and wife.

During November’s general election, Florida voters are being asked to decide whether a similar restriction should be made a permanent amendment to the State Constitution, limiting who can be legal spouses to ‘one man, one woman,’ effectively disenfranchising hundreds, if not thousands, of committed couples in the state.

I am suspending my self-imposed ban on political stances.

I do not believe it should be the purview of the state, or even federal government to put prerequisites on who someone can love, who can be named as a beneficiary, who has the right to make life-sustaining decisions, or who can be domestic partners in the eyes of the law ~ with all the rights inherent in such a partnership, including adoption. It most certainly should not be a line item in the State Constitution.

The semantics of the word ‘marriage’ should be taken out of the equation. If ‘marriage’ is to be considered a religious rite between ‘one man, one woman’, let it remain as such. But, two adults in a loving, nurturing, mutually beneficial relationship should be able to have their domestic union legally recognized as much as mine is, regardless of sexual orientation.

I voted ‘No’ against No. 2 Constitutional Amendment, Article 1, New Section.

‘It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this act, the term “white person” shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding the intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this act.’ ~ Part 5, Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, Virginia Center for Digital History

‘In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that at the time still enforced them. …It in affect ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.’ ~ Wikipedia, Anti-miscegenation laws citation.

‘This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.’ ~ page 8 of Sample Ballot, Okaloosa County, Florida Marriage Protection Amendment – No. 2, Article 1, Nov. 4, 2008 General Election.