Rhode Island is rapidly on its way to becoming the next state with marriage equality. For those of you momentarily confused, marriage equality is when two consenting adults of any sex can marry one another in the eyes of the law. Rhode Island recently passed something to get some version of “man and woman only” taken out of their State constitution. It kind of make sense, considering they’re very close to several of the biggest states that allow marriage equality and states can only resist the siren call of a happy population and extra tax benefits for so long.
When the bill passes, there will be reactions. The Westboro Baptist Church will probably picket something, screaming and waving profanities and generally making jerks of themselves; Rick Santorum might join them; and then people on the other side of the fence will be pleased, but some will also be frustrated that equality is going state by state. There have been calls for a federal mandate, for a bill saying, “look guys; you’re both adults, you both have the ability to consent, you’re not related and when you kissed a pit to Hell didn’t open up; so go ahead and get married.” Roughly that, at least; there would probably be some Latin and a lot of numbers in the actual bill, but you understand my point.
The problem is, of course, that a Federal mandate for marriage equality would never work. It doesn’t matter about popular opinion, it never does. What matters is the fact that Congress couldn’t pass a bill saying anything without it taking about two years. A bill over something like marriage equality would be left out there to die. The people sitting in those chairs don’t really care at all about what their constituents might think – they care about what they themselves think. And you only need to do a quick Google search to be able to tell that a federal attempt would not work.
If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the fact that in the last election, Minnesota killed a bill that would make marriage equality more illegal than it already was while simultaneously re-electing Michelle Bachman.
Furthermore, that election is a good indicator of the progress that can be made on a state-by-state basis rather than a federal one. Washington, Maryland and Maine all passed marriage equality in this past election by popular vote. Maine was a historic vote in that it was the first time the issue had been put up to the people’s decision. And the people spoke.
So what that should be telling you is that the majority of the people in each vote either wanted marriage equality, or didn’t care enough to fight against it. This is kind of a change from what we hear from the strongly divided Congress on a regular basis.
Heck, according to votesmart.org the Washington representative Mark Hargrove is quoted as saying “I believe that a majority of us do not want our children taught that same sex marriage is just the same as traditional marriage … And I fully expect that the vote on R-74 will support this view.”
Spoiler alert: he was wrong. The majority of people voted for marriage equality, and it passed.
It kind of makes you wonder how well he knows his constituents, huh?
In any case, if and when the Rhode Island State Senate makes a decision in favor of the bill, it will be both the 10th state to pass a law for marriage equality and the last New England state to legalize it. That last fact especially makes it pretty clear that change is on the horizon. It’s actually pretty interesting because before the Nineteenth Amendment gave all United States women the right to vote in all elections, the most States that had women’s suffrage were in the West, not the East. This provides a nice example – change starts slow before it can reach everyone.
New York State became the State with the highest population to pass marriage equality; and DOMA has been declared unconstitutional in nearly every review it gets, California is fighting to get their rights back, and overall … change is coming. There just needs to be a little more patience. We’ll get there.