In New Jersey, a setback for equality

Let's go back for a minute to the early 1960s, when the question of civil rights for black Americans was considered a divisive subject in the United States.

Suppose there had been referendums on the ballot or votes in state legislatures to repeal Jim Crow laws, the legal segregation that relegated black people to second-class citizenship. How many legislatures, how many states, would have voted to repeal those laws?

I'll give you the answer: None.

Not the members of one legislature, not the residents of one state would have voted to grant black people equal citizenship, much less allow marriages between blacks and whites. It took the courts, and eventually Congress, to guarantee those rights.

And the opponents of equality? They would have made arguments that sound all too familiar: they would have cited the Bible and warned of threats to children and talked about "tradition" and claimed that separate was equal.

I'm disappointed by yesterday's vote in the New Jersey Senate defeating a bill that would have allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry. But the outcome has nothing to do with justice, with what is right and fair, with the concept of equal treatment under the law.

One remark that particularly infuriated me was from Democratic Sen. Stephen M. Sweeney, who said that voters would look unkindly on the legislature if it pushed for a social issue at a time of economic suffering. (He didn't vote on the same-sex marriage bill.)

A social issue?

What does he think marriage means to gay and lesbian couples? Marriage equality ensures that you can plan every aspect of your life together. It's about health benefits and hospital visitation rights and all of the other protections and benefits that come from being legally joined together.

My friends who happen to be gay or lesbian are not second-class anything and they shouldn't be treated as second-class citizens under the law. Votes in Maine and California and New York and New Jersey don't change that.

Perhaps the courts are where this struggle for civil rights will ultimately be won, just as it was for black Americans in the 1960s. Or perhaps it's just a matter of time. The vote in Maine was close and by all accounts, opposition to same-sex marriage is a generational issue.

In the meantime, I will continue to support my friends as they live life to the fullest, to celebrate their long and loving relationships. Gay and lesbian couples will continue to form families. No ballot measure or legislative vote is going to shove them back in the closet.

And I'm not totally disheartened this week.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal has ruled out any debate in the current session on amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex unions. That means the earliest the matter could be put to a public vote would be 2014.

Senator Gronstal, you are still a hero to me!

By 2014, the first gay and lesbian couples to marry in Iowa will be celebrating their fifth anniversaries. Hopefully their friends and family, neighbors and coworkers will realize that the social fabric did not unravel but rather, was made stronger.

Maine and the majority/minority divide

Voters in Maine appear to have approved a ballot measure overturning a never-implemented law legalizing same-sex marriage. It's infuriating and tragic and wrong and unAmerican to deny some American citizens their full and equal rights, indeed, to deny them their very humanity.

But I think the results, this year in Maine and last year in California, are also a reminder of how genuinely difficult it is for people in the majority to understand what it's like to be part of a minority group.

The year I spent in Israel was unique in many ways. As an American Jew living for the first time in an overwhelmingly Jewish country, it was a fascinating and sobering experience to be on the other side of the majority/minority divide.

There are tangible signs: the displays for your holiday are at the front of the supermarket and you don't have to take a vacation day from work to celebrate it. And you never have to fumble around for what to say when someone wishes you a Merry Christmas.

Then there are the intangible ways you know you're in the majority. You never have to listen to anyone say the United States is a Christian nation and feel like they're excluding you. And you never have to think about the minorities in your midst.

It's not even a conscious decision to ignore them. The majority in any society is so overwhelming, so omnipresent, that if you belong to it, you don't have to think about the people who can get left out - through ethnicity or race or gender or sexual orientation.

In most cases, I think it requires an unusual strength of character or a personal connection to break through that indifference. You have to make an effort to put yourself in the other person's shoes. A lot of people simply don't understand, aren't willing to take the time, don't see why they ought to do so.

For me, it's personal. As a Jew, I look at the votes in Maine and California and think: What if they want to put my civil rights up for a popular vote next? Jews are a tiny percentage of the U.S. population. We'd probably lose.

It's not personal solely because I'm Jewish.

It's also personal because I have wonderful friends who are gay and lesbian, who enrich their communities and my life every day I know them. And I don't see any reason for my friends who are in committed relationships to be denied the right to marry the person they love, to be denied the benefits and protections of civil marriage.

It's incredibly disheartening that people would vote to take civil rights away from their fellow citizens. I don't have any answers this morning. I just know how difficult it is to get through, especially to straight people who think they don't know anyone who's gay or lesbian.

I wish they would realize what they've done - to their neighbors, their coworkers, maybe even to their friends and relatives by denying them equal protection under the law. I wish they'd realize what they've done to themselves, to their state and to their country when bigotry and fear triumph over reason.

But we have to keep trying to make them understand. I have to keep trying.

Save marriage equality in Maine

Maine residents are voting today on whether to repeal a law legalizing same-sex marriage. The measure was passed by the legislature and signed by Governor John Baldacci in May but has never taken effect.

It's unbelievable to me that we even allow some Americans to decide whether other Americans are entitled to equal rights. Civil rights should never, ever be subject to a popular vote.

Allowing gay and lesbian citizens the benefits and protections of civil marriage does not take away anything from anyone else in Maine. Just the opposite - expanding civil rights to include groups that have historically been excluded benefits all Americans.

As Philip Spooner, an 87-year-old veteran, Maine resident and father of four sons, one of whom is gay, says so eloquently, "This is what we fought for in World War II, the idea that we can be different and still be equal."

Really, is that so difficult to understand?