Eva Paterson Commentary on Marriage Equality

Eva Paterson of the Equal Justice Society has a commentary published in the San Francisco Chronicle urging a no vote on the November ballot measure to amend the California Constitution to prevent gay marriage.

She explicitly makes the comparison between the controversy and social upheaval over interracial marriage in the 1960s following the United States Supreme Court's Loving v. Virginia decision legalizing interracial marriage and 2008's controversy over same-sex marriage in California following the state Supreme Court's legalizing same-sex marriages.

What gay men and lesbians are experiencing now as they seek to marry feels very familiar to me. The state has no right to tell anyone who they can or cannot love or marry. That is why this ballot initiative is misguided and cruel.

There are good people who continue to hold different beliefs about marriage for gay and lesbian couples. But amending our state Constitution is different. Writing a statement of inequality into the founding document of our state affects everyone's status in our community. It would say to some Californians that they are second-class citizens. We have gone down that road before, and we know where it leads.

That is why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama have both clearly stated their opposition to the proposed California constitutional amendment, even though they do not personally support marriage for gay and lesbian couples. they are opposed because a constitution is different. If a European-American Republican governor and an African-American Democratic presidential candidate can agree on that principle, then I believe the people of California can rally around it as well.

Committed, loving gay and lesbian couples will begin legally marrying next week. Do not take their marriages away from them in November.

We are stronger as a community when we come together to strengthen all of our relationships. Divided, we are weaker.