[Dean's World] Dean: Marriage Equality Grass Roots Effort

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Posted by Dean:
Marriage Equality Grass Roots Effort
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1152265181.shtml


   Gay Patriot [1]notes a recent court decision, and emphasizes that what
   gay people need to start doing is getting involved in grass-roots
   democratic action rather than trying to use the courts to force their
   agenda on people.

   As I have noted many times before, most civil rights advances of the
   last 200 years, including most of the ones from the Civil Rights Era
   that did so much to free black people in the 1950s and 1960s, were not
   won through the courts. This is a myth. The end to segregated bus
   seats? Achieved through legislation. End of "whites only" restrooms
   and drinking fountains? Achieved through legislation. Equal employment
   opportunity? Legislation. Voting equality? Legislation. In fact, other
   than Brown v. Board of Education, the one court case everyone can
   cite, almost none of the truly major civil rights advances for
   minorities came from the courts. Most of them came from executive
   orders signed by Presidents and Governors, or through acts of Congress
   or state legislatures.

   We have to get over this notion that we can get everything we want by
   finding a sympathetic judge, and start realizing that the real way to
   change the world is to persuade your fellow citizens that you are
   right.

References

   1. http://gaypatriot.net/2006/07/06/new-yorks-ruling-on-gay-marriage-the-imperative-to-move-the-debate-from-courts-to-legislatures