BEYOND THE MARRIAGE DEBATE: John Kerry, 1996

In 1996, when John Kerry was one of the few U.S. senators to oppose the antigay federal Defense of Marriage Act, he wrote for The Advocate a passionate column on the civil rights struggle for gay and lesbian equality. That article is reprinted here.

By Sen. John F. Kerry

From The Advocate, September 3, 1996

The misnamed and misguided Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is as unconstitutional and unnecessary as it is mean-spirited and malicious. The authors of the bill mistakenly claim that Congress has the authority to allow one state to ignore a legally recognized marriage in another. But the U.S. Constitution is unequivocal on this point: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." ...

Unconstitutional. Unnecessary. Premature. Presumptuous. What is this debate really about? It seems no coincidence that every election year a few politicians gang together for some legislative gay bashing. This behavior panders to the basest instincts of the human condition--scapegoating and ostracizing.

But we are a better nation than that. Echoing the ignorance and bigotry that peppered the discussion of interracial marriage a generation ago, the proponents of DOMA call for a caste system for marriage. I will not be party to that. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained 30 years ago, "Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married." This is the essence of the American pursuit of happiness and the core of the struggle for equality. ...

Antigay forces might have their day with the Defense of Marriage Act, but as my friend Rep. Gerry Studds declared on the floor of the House, "We are going to prevail just as every other component of the civil rights movement in this country has prevailed. There is nothing any of us can do today to stop that. We can embrace it warmly, as some of us do; we can resist it bitterly, as some of us do, but there is no power on earth that can stop it."

Gerry has it right. We will win this fight for civil rights. We will win the fight for equal protection under the law. We will win the right for all Americans to live with whom they love without the fear of discrimination and violence. I learned from the struggles of the '60s and '70s that the wheels of progress turn slowly. We must all push together as one powerful force to roll over the obstacles of hatred and bigotry in this country. The strongest menace we face is not DOMA but our own inertia and complacency.

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posted by Eve at 2:52 PM | link

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