Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Hawaii Governor Vetoes Civil Unions Bill

...which passed with good majorities.  She says that the issue should be put before the voters in a referendum.  I believe she is wrong, for this reason: our Constitution was set up so that the majority cannot take away the civil rights of a minority.  It has, true, taken this long for most people to recognize that it is a civil rights issue, where a particular class (class in the legal sense, not the social sense) of people are being denied equal rights.  A further complication is that almost all of the people who are denying this right do so on a religious basis, but the Constitution guarantees religious freedom.  People should not be forced to live their lives according to the religious beliefs of others - and those Christians who are denying gays the right to marry would be the first to be up in arms (some of them literally) at the idea that some one else's religion could determine any aspect of their own lives.

 

 

Posted via email from reannon's posterous

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