Just in time for the Fourth of July, the U.S. Supreme Court has delivered red, white and blue and a rainbow, too. These are happy days for those of us who have long supported the right of gay couples to marry.
This is an American moment that ought to be savored by everybody who thinks this the sweet land of liberty. The Pledge of Allegiance's promise of liberty and justice for all has been vindicated. Note those two words "for all." That is precisely what this is all about.
But today I feel badly for my conservative friends. Yes, I have some--and on both sides there is no accounting for taste. If there is to be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, their understanding will be needed going forward. They need a word of reassurance before joining the rainbow celebration.
So, maties, do not worry about the Supreme Court's decision to allow gay couples to marry in all 50 states. Despite your exaggerated fears, you won't have to go out in search of a gay person to marry.
As for the paranoid idea that all churches will now be required to conduct gay marriages, let me just say the obvious: Not likely. Right now, a heterosexual couple can't just arrive at any church and demand to be wed, because typically you have to be a member, and being a member means subscribing to the beliefs of that church.
That doesn't change for gay couples. A right to gay marriage is about equal treatment, at least by any sane reckoning that accounts for the First Amendment rights of ministers.
Such fears aside, how could anyone take exception to the idea, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, that the "Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons ... to define and express their identity."
How could anyone object to the notion that "the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy"? Or deny the reality that same-sex couples were being discriminated against in multiple ways?
Well, some could object if they were the Republican candidates for president, ever eager to show how out of step they are with the American people.
They could object if they were the justices in the minority, who see the Constitution only as a rigid tin whistle playing 18th-Century tunes and not a concertina that can expand to accommodate anthems of justice reflective of the times, thus expanding liberty itself.
But surely ordinary conservatives are not bound to assume the grumpy old man persona of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose dissent amounted to a judicial hissy fit. Surely they do not have to be as clueless as Justice Clarence Thomas, who didn't think gays were being harmed and who suggested they want to marry for the entitlements. What's love got to do with it?
Chief Justice John Roberts set a better example. He wrote a dissent that went out of the way not to begrudge supporters of gay marriage their celebration. He did not believe the decision was in accord with the Constitution, but he recognized that the petitioners for gay marriage made "strong arguments rooted in social policy and considerations of fairness."
Yes, they did--and that is why it will all work out. It is true that the Founding Fathers would be astounded. But then they would be astounded that a black man is president and that wives are no longer regarded as chattel.
Times have changed, and America has accommodated that change in a just and fair way befitting a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. What a glorious Fourth.
Reg Henry is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Editorial on 07/03/2015