Texas Anti-Gay Amendment “Unnecessary,” “Mean-spirited” and “An Embarrassment”
November 15, 2005: Kudos to the Houston Chronicle for exposing their state’s vote for an anti-gay marriage amendment as the horror show that it is. Here’s some quotes from today’s editorial; you can read the whole thing here.
However satisfying this amendment is to its many supporters, its passage is no victory for Texas. Its presence on the ballot was as unnecessary as it was mean-spirited.
Not only was there no legal or practical need to elevate current state prohibitions to constitutional writ, but doing so came across as a direct attack on gays and on their struggle for a measure of legal equality. Besides being an embarrassment, the amendment sends the wrong signal to businesses that thrive on intellectual capital and creativity.
It’s good to know that someone in Texas is willing to call out their neighbors as the hateful bigots that they are. The editorial concludes on a hopeful note, however, and one with which I agree:
Surveys show that younger people are more comfortable than older people with the fact of homosexuality. That bodes well for a day when a majority of Texans come to realize that legally recognized homosexual partnerships pose no threat to heterosexual couples, but merely extend to same-sex partners and their children the rights and protections that Texans clearly value.