The Proposition

The hearings before the Supreme Court of California, regarding the now famous Proposition 8, have been on TV for anyone to review. Attorneys from both sides of the argument have presented their cases. One side has argued that it should not legal for one group of people, a majority, to discriminate against a suspect special group, in the minority, by giving this group a different name (civil unions). The attorney for this side used the example that women on the court would need to be called commissioners and the men could be called justices and posed the question, “is that not unequal before the law.” The other side said that marriage is the name which the majority of people wish reserved to recognize the relationship between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 did not alter the legal rights which people had before the law and did not seek to take rights away from people. It only sought to require that the term marriage applied only to the union between a man and a woman.

If we have paid attention to the news we have seen how emotional this whole situation is, some thinking there is inequality and the law is perpetuating that and others thinking they are saving and protecting marriages. My feelings ran a different course and I would like to write about that.

I have wondered what the difference is between equality and fairness (or justice) and the connection between equality and freedom of opportunity. If people are not equal in every respect is there also the absence of justice and fairness between them? Can there be fairness and justice without people being equal? To answer these questions I have thought about our need still to seek racial and cultural acceptance. Where the fight for racial equality is concerned, people who wanted segregation tried to apply the “separate but equal” idea but then and now that meant a lack of fairness and opportunity. That was not and is not acceptable to me or to anyone I know. It seems like equality was then and is now necessary to create fairness and freedom of opportunity. But what about gender issues? Should the question of equality before the law be extended to the equality of boys and girls, men and women? If it is, what about the idea of gender differences, social and sex roles of boys and girls? Can we perpetuate appropriate differences between boys and girls without their being inequality in every case? How do we do it?

These are cultural questions which lead to ideas that influence us as parents and how we rear our children. Like it or not we rear our children in this cultural context and both they and we are influenced by them. What is fairness in our families? What is freedom of opportunity and how do we create and preserve it for each child? How do we feel equality and fairness in our marriages where there are many differences of opportunity required of men and women who work in a job and/or at home and also carry out different parental roles.

I believe we can’t preserve fairness and freedom just by adjusting our family rules (or civil laws) without creating relationships where we are involved in each others lives and care about one another. That might be part of the problem. If we knew each other better and cared more we might not need to worry so much about every specific point of rights, equality, fairness, and freedom. We ought to try it out.