Is same-sex marriage a civil rights issue?
Answers Maggie Gallagher: No. Here’s the difference. Bans on interracial marriage were about keeping two races separate so that one race could oppress the other, and that was bad. Marriage is about bringing together men and women so children can have mothers and fathers and that is good. I mean not to sound like that statue in “Animal House” or anything but it comes down to this: Racism is bad, and marriage is good. Same-sex marriage is profoundly unjust because it misuses the law to require something that is not true: these unions, however great they are in other ways, are not marriages and nobody should be required by law to treat them as marriages. Gavin Newsom: Yes, same-sex marriage is the civil rights issue of our time. In recent months, Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut and Maine have joined Massachusetts to stand up against hate and injustice, and stand up for equality. In California, we became the first state in the nation to use our constitution to strip rights away from our fellow
