It’s “the civil-rights issue of our time,” said the Financial Times. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers two landmark cases on gay marriage, the tide of history is clearly moving toward legalization. Unfortunately, the justices appear wary of issuing an expansive decision and sparking “another U.S. culture war over states’ rights,” as they did with their 1973 ruling legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade. But it would be a mistake to leave states “to their own devices” on this issue. “Either there is a constitutional right to equal treatment or there is not.” The U.S. is a vast and diverse country, said Martin Klingst in Die Zeit (Germany), and it has always proudly defended the idea that what’s allowed in liberal states like Massachusetts does not have to be permitted in places like Alabama. But occasionally such diversity “also means great injustice.” A gay couple with an adopted child should not find their marriage invalid simply because they move from New York to Virginia. If gay marriage really is a fundamental civil right, then it must be granted everywhere “without exception.”
Mexico is already heading in that direction, said Patricia Briseño in Excelsior (Mexico). In December, our Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law banning gay marriage in the southern state of Oaxaca. The justices here even cited two U.S. Supreme Court cases in their decision, comparing the inability of gays to marry to the discrimination interracial couples once faced north of the border. Last month, for the first time, a gay couple was wed in Oaxaca. Their marriage “is a triumph of democracy, equality, and non-discrimination,” even if the laws in all of Mexico’s states still need to be aligned with our Supreme Court’s ruling.
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