An Aside: For This Election Year . . .

I wrote this piece as my response to the 7 Straight Nights for Equal Rights Vigil that has recently taken place across the nation to advocate for the civil rights of the LGBTQ Community. My thanks go to Jenny Boylan and Rick Russo for their permission to set this bit of writing loose.




To the Editors of the New York Times, (Pending Acceptance by the Editorial Board)

Please find below the text of a letter, addressing the current controversy raging over same-sex marriage in the State of Arizona. Of course, the larger import of this issue is marked by its divisiveness across the whole of the nation. It is illustrative that the issue lands squarely upon the fundamental precept of equal protection under the law. As we rapidly approach a crucial national election, it is important to keep in mind that some principles trump even the passionately held customs and conventions of a “socially conservative” majority. This is particularly true when the granting of a “right” to a demonstrably aggrieved minority cannot be shown, in any meaningful way, to infringe the rights and free exercise of the majority.

I hope you will consider this submission topical and appropriate for publication as a future Op-Ed column.



On the Notion of Love and Fundamental Fairness under the Law

In the afterword to Jennifer Finney Boylan’s bestselling book She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, (and briefly paraphrased below) her close friend and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo speculates on the transformative nature of the love we share with those closest to us.

“It is often in defiance of custom and convention that the all too human heart inclines to whom it inclines . . . we simply love whom we love.”

This is, finely distilled, the essence of being human. We draw near to one another by the complex and mysterious dictates of our hearts. For the majority culture, our intimate relationships generally take on a heteronormative appearance. However, for not a few of us it is simply not that simple. On the evidence and in the face of loving, committed and longstanding relationships, does custom and convention form the only basis upon which the objection of the majority rests? How then do we consider the legitimate rights of the minority? In our form of government, the rights of the minority exist as defining legal principles and we must continue to respect and defend those principles if our republic is to long endure.

Is there a more compelling argument with which to counter the majority’s vociferous objection to same-sex marriage? Is custom and convention sufficient in and of itself to stand unmoved before a vastly more powerful concept?

How do we regard the notion of equal protection under the law and the equal and impartial application of that law to all Americans?

It is this bedrock principle, which undergirds the founding fathers conviction that we are not a nation of individuals, nor are we a nation of customs and conventions. Rather we are, as Adams so eloquently wrote, a “nation of laws”. Throughout the history of our republic, we have enacted wise and just laws that continue to protect and renew the validity of this legal concept. Yet it is also true that at too many points in our history, laws have been enacted to disenfranchise and discriminate against the minority. In the past, the legislative and legal process has actively sought to justify the tyranny of the majority against the minority. Laws have attempted to justify human slavery and uphold anti-miscegenation. We have enacted laws, which forbade woman the right to vote, and we have stood silent when faced with the prospect of unjust war and the infringements of our civil rights that came in the heat of these conflicts. It is to our credit as a nation of fair-minded people that when we are confronted with bad law our nation’s founding fathers set in place the means to strike down these laws and for us to eventually set things right.

Legislating against same-sex marriage is an example of bad public policy. It has the effect of denying to some Americans the civil rights that are due all citizens of this “nation of laws”. If our state governments insists on being in the marriage business, than all Americans shall equally participate and benefit from the rights, privileges and responsibilities that flow from that institution. In the case of many of the states in our union, new laws should not be enacted to defend the shallow and unjustifiable aims of custom and convention. Indeed, it is time to strike down the existing laws, which seek to justify tyranny and deny to some Americans the rights, privileges and responsibilities that shall be the birthright of all Americans.


Renée M. Thomas
Phoenix, Arizona


©2008 Renée Thomas