Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

California Proposition 8, which modifies the State Constitution to stipulate marriage is an institution between one man and one woman was upheld today by the California Supreme Court. The fundos see this as a big victory. Libs see it as an infuriating barricade on their march toward utopia. Symbolically it is both. Really, it's neither.

All Prop 8 does, specifically, is preserve the word marriage to be used only as the civil union between a man and a woman and require that homosexual civil unions must be called something else. As far as I know, members of homosexual civil unions could still use the terms husband and wife, in any context or combination they like. As far as I know, non hetero couples can have whatever kind of joining ceremony and call it anything they want, as long as it's not marriage. It's a pretty good deal, really. Gay rights activists will tell you that if it's not marriage, it's not the same. It isn't, strictly speaking, equality. Equality is what they are after and what they feel that traditional marriage supporters are trying to withhold from them.

What's going to happen is this ruling will set off a whole new war between the homosexual community and fundamentalist traditional family and religious factions. Oh well, anything to breath new life into the culture wars.

No comments: