Anyone following the news this weekend may rightly have been filled with sadness and despair on more than one occasion.
Yesterday, at least 39 people were killed and 36 injured when a gunman opened fire on a Tunisian beach. The same day, 27 worshippers were killed in a suicide attack on a Kuwait mosque. Ealier today, the President of the United States stood on a podium in Charleston and delivered a eulogy to honour the lives of 9 people who were murdered when a gunman opened fire on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church last week. Stories like these make justice seem distant and progress glacial.
But this weekend brought good news, too. News that makes the opposite seem true.
On Friday the United States Supreme Court delivered an historic ruling declaring same sex marriage legal in every single one of America’s 50 states. To continue to deny the LGBTQI community the right to marry, the court decided, would be unconstitutional.
The ruling ended years of patchwork progress towards marriage equality in the United States. It announced unequivocally that – finally- this debate is over. There are no more questions, and only one answer: same sex couples enjoy the same civil rights as everybody else.
The ruling was cast by a 5-4 majority and written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. The ruling was handed down late on Friday night Australian time, and since its announcement the closing paragaph of Justice Kennedy’s verdict has been widely circulated.
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were,” Justice Kennedy wrote.
“It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions.”
Justice Kennedy ended his judgment with these unequovical words:
“They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
With those words, the United States Constitution’s equal protections clause now enshrines the right of LGBTIQ Americans to marry in any state in the USA.
An emotional President Obama addressed the nation a few hours after the ruling was delivered.
“Progress on this journey often comes in small increments. Sometimes two steps forward, one step back, compelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens,” he said.
“And then sometimes there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”
“When all Americans are treated as equals, we are all more free. Today we can say, in no uncertain terms, that we’ve made our union a little more perfect.”
The United States Supreme Court decision follows in quick succession a democratic referendum on the legality of same sex marriage in Ireland. There, too, the answer was a resounding ‘yes’ to marriage equality.
Today’s news from America is joyful. It represents an important step towards equality for American citizens and, as we well know, inequality anywhere is a threat to equality everywhere. But it also makes all the more clear the disappointment and sadness that our own country has fallen so far behind.
Here in Australia we have a prime minister who is outspoken and adamant in his opposition to equality when it comes to marriage. Today, he even told the media that the historic US ruling had not challenged his resolve on the issue.
Here in the Australia we have a government that refuses to even debate the question in its own party room. We have a government that refuses to allow a conscience vote to take place on this issue.
In Australia, we have a government that feels so little compulsion to correct this injustice that when the Opposition party proposed a marriage equality bill earlier this month, they did not even bother to turn up to parliament.
All of this opposition from our government is explained away with comments about party policy. But if there is one message from Ireland’s referendum and from the United States’ courts it is that this issue is no longer political. It should not be about political values or parties, but about the fundamental need to end the legal enshrinement of brazen discrimination against an entire community.
I hope that the changes made in Ireland and now America help get the message to our government that this issue is far bigger than them. Bigger than politics, bigger than parties, and bigger than political point-scoring.
Justice delayed is justice denied. And every day that our government insists on swimming against the tide of equality puts us all to shame.