By Harold Riley
As I sit here contemplating and attempting to deal with the California Supreme Court decision that upholds the ban against same-sex marriage, there are tears in my eyes, but an unquenchable hope in my heart. For despite this approval of majority tyranny against a minority, I know that there is nothing stronger than an idea whose time has arrived. And same-sex marriage will become the law of the land in the foreseeable future.
Who do I believe ? it seems an impossibility in the face of a backlash from a misinformed and zealous public who won by only four points after a bruising and very expensive campaign against their gay brothers and sisters?
Because Americans in their deepest hearts and traditions will not long tolerate injustice and intolerance. Because many times in our history men and women have fought the long, bitter battle for freedom and have won against impossible odds.
Those songs of the Civil Rights of the ”60s and ”70s resonate today just as strongly as they did in those terrible days of biting dogs and fire hoses. The message was always simple, hold on ? endurance and love toward those who scorn you.
The women who chained themselves to doorways just in order to vote, scorned and spat upon like the black children who just wanted to attend the school of their choice.
And when they won their battle for Civil Rights, America regained its soul.
So the last minority in America, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community, will also win because America can not hope to free others in alien lands when some of her citizens do not have full basic rights, because justice must and will prevail if we are to have an equitable society, because a people cannot long endure without freedom to love and marry those they choose to live their lives with. We shall overcome.
Harold Riley
Clearlake
