Originally published June 26, 2015
Speak-Out / Celebration
7 PM Tonight!!
This morning the Supreme Court announced that we have prevailed against the bigots who said that LGBTs didn’t have the right to marry and against those states that have refused to sanction our marriages.
Even more importantly, the Court’s majority said that henceforth LGBTs will be covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the post-Civil War amendment that made Black people — later interpreted to include women — citizens and therefore entitled to equal rights to jobs, housing and public accommodation.
Mere reflection on the meaning of this last sentence – and recognizing the many decades in U.S. history that Blacks and women have found the 14th Amendment unfulfilled – should indicate to thoughtful people just how much more work we still have to do to win true LGBT social and legal equality in the United States.
As Blacks and women have discovered before, it’s one thing to win nice pieces of paper from the government saying you are free, and it’s quite another thing to secure dignity and freedom in practice. The lynchings in a Charleston church last week and the unchecked racist police violence against Blacks and Latinos should drive home that lesson.
Bigoted legislators from Michigan to Indiana to North Carolina have already shown that they are happy to expand the Court’s Hobby Lobby decision attacking women’s right to contraceptives and abortion, to include the denial of LGBTs’ equal access to government services and public accommodations.
For many years after its issuance, the Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS anti-segregation ruling remained a dead letter as racists battled to preserve racial segregation and discrimination. Anti-LGBT bigots will undoubtedly do the same as they try to rob today’s Supreme Court victory of its full meaning.
It will be up to the LGBT movement and our allies to ensure that today’s court victory isn’t just a nice piece of paper.
Please join us tonight at 7 PM in front of the Center on Halsted to begin that process of demanding the full implementation of today’s tremendous court victory.
If we fail to do that, if we fail to push this victory for all it’s worth, then we will have no one to blame but ourselves for any future rollback of our rights. Be there – 7 PM tonight, Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted Street Chicago, for speak-out and celebration.
Even more importantly, the Court’s majority said that henceforth LGBTs will be covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the post-Civil War amendment that made Black people — later interpreted to include women — citizens and therefore entitled to equal rights to jobs, housing and public accommodation.
Mere reflection on the meaning of this last sentence – and recognizing the many decades in U.S. history that Blacks and women have found the 14th Amendment unfulfilled – should indicate to thoughtful people just how much more work we still have to do to win true LGBT social and legal equality in the United States.
As Blacks and women have discovered before, it’s one thing to win nice pieces of paper from the government saying you are free, and it’s quite another thing to secure dignity and freedom in practice. The lynchings in a Charleston church last week and the unchecked racist police violence against Blacks and Latinos should drive home that lesson.
Bigoted legislators from Michigan to Indiana to North Carolina have already shown that they are happy to expand the Court’s Hobby Lobby decision attacking women’s right to contraceptives and abortion, to include the denial of LGBTs’ equal access to government services and public accommodations.
For many years after its issuance, the Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS anti-segregation ruling remained a dead letter as racists battled to preserve racial segregation and discrimination. Anti-LGBT bigots will undoubtedly do the same as they try to rob today’s Supreme Court victory of its full meaning.
It will be up to the LGBT movement and our allies to ensure that today’s court victory isn’t just a nice piece of paper.
Please join us tonight at 7 PM in front of the Center on Halsted to begin that process of demanding the full implementation of today’s tremendous court victory.
If we fail to do that, if we fail to push this victory for all it’s worth, then we will have no one to blame but ourselves for any future rollback of our rights. Be there – 7 PM tonight, Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted Street Chicago, for speak-out and celebration.