Gay Rights Groups and Anti-Gay Marriage Groups Unite in D.C.

Is the heading on this blog entry puzzling? It's not quite what you'd think (or perhaps hope for), but it's an interesting twist on what's happening with the legalization of same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia, still on track to be officially law by late January 2010. An anti-gay marriage group took out ads on the city's Metro system calling for D.C. residents to be able to vote on gay marriage -- a strategy employed in Maine this past November to overturn its legislature's passage of a same-sex marriage bill. In a perhaps-unexpected twist detailed in this WAMU story, a gay rights group in D.C. called for the ads to remain, citing the First Amendment and the need to protect everyone's civil liberties.

Certainly, not siding with protecting civil liberties might seem hypocritical, given that same-sex marriage is about granting equal rights to gays and lesbians when it comes to matters of marriage and family. However, the notion of putting legal rights and protections for a specific group of Americans to a vote is seemingly at odds with the Constitutionally-granted protections Americans enjoy. Significant advances for women and for people of color took bold, legislative efforts that wouldn't have held up to public vote at the times they were enacted. Though attitudes about same-sex marriage are evolving in the United States, we believe that's happening due to more and more states enacting legislation protecting gay and lesbian families and allowing same-sex marriage. The District of Columbia City Council is the latest in a growing number of legislative bodies in the U.S. doing the right thing.