As was
diaried yesterday, and which promptly rolled off the diary list, South Africa now passes the United States in civil rights and equality for all its citizens under the law. This happened when its
high court ruled that the government could no longer discriminate under marriage law on the basis of gender and that same-gender couples had the constitutional right to marriage and gave their government one year to change the laws to grant full legal rights under marriage to same-gender couples.
When I read that, and the more I thought about it the more ashamed I became to be an American. And reading some of the comments in that diary yesterday, especially PerfectStormer's which echoed my feelings and reaction to the news, it prompted me to send a letter to the editor of our main local newspaper here in Portland Oregon (The Oregonian which had a front page story on this... hmmm yet dKos didn't?) not that I have much hope they will print it.
My LTE is below the fold
America Getting Passed By
Yesterday (December 1st) the South African courts ruled that same-gender couples have a constitutional right to marriage, giving their government one year to change the laws to grant full legal rights to same-gender couples.
I certainly don't begrudge the people of South Africa the lovely country they are rebuilding into, but EXCUSE ME? The "Great American Melting Pot", self-described paragon of diversity and equality, now trails the country that brought the world apartheid, and not-so-long-ago was one of the most racist and oppressive regimes on the planet?
It is a pathetic commentary that, when it comes to full equality and civil rights under the law, non-heterosexuals will get it from a nation who was until recently a human rights pariah, but not in our self-delusional "land of the free".
We the United States are becoming a punch line to, and an emblem of that clichéd phrase... a pathetic joke.
Mitchell Gore
Tigard, OR
Again I won't be holding my breath for The Oregonian to publish my letter on this issue, since they tend to only publish letters on this issue if they also have some letter from some geezer in Bend or Albany who calls for the internment of non-heterosexuals in the old WW2 camps (ala the self-loathing Michelle Malkin).
But why is it that South Africa's courts and government can do the correct thing, yet even large swaths of our own parties "leadership", let alone the ill-informed broader electorate or the mouth-breathing troglodytes on the other side of the aisle can't get it right?
What is so hard about this folks?