When the Hartford Public Library hosted a debate on the right wing’s call for a constitutional convention, the newly-formed Connecticut Civil Rights Defense Coalition was there with a lively picket line outside urging people to vote No. It was there that I heard from one of the supporters of the constitutional convention . . . actually we heard from her several times as she passed our picket.
On one of her passes she hollered out the essence of the real Vote Yes agenda: “You can have same sex marriage if the majority vote for it!”
On the surface it’s an attractive position, isn’t it? To have democracy, all you have to have is a majority vote. Some of the Vote Yes people have even been boasting that a constitutional convention that implements a system of state-wide initiatives would constitute “direct democracy.” What’s more, the constitutional convention people have even been able to recruit some “liberals” with this line. On Wednesday evening one of the debaters was a former Democratic state rep and CCSU prof John Woodcock.
But just how hard is this to understand? When the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the state of Virginia was only one of a number of states that prohibited inter-racial marriages. Probably if there had been a referendum on the issue in Virginia at that time, the majority of voters in that state would have said No. No, if you’re black you can’t be married to a white person.
Now, this isn’t a matter, as some have suggested, of ordinary people not being smart enough to make important decisions. There were plenty of smart people in Virginia in 1967 who nonetheless regarded interracial marriages as immoral, offensive and against the public interest.
Nor is it a matter, as others would have it, of recognizing that “we’re a republic, a representative government, and not a democracy.” The elected officials of Virginia were no better at recognizing the evil of racism in the state’s apartheid-style statutes than anyone else.
It’s really much simpler than that. To even begin to think in terms of genuine democracy, everyone in the community has to come to the table as equals. Without some check on the majority view, without some guarantees of basic human rights and social equality for all people, the minority inevitably comes to the table as second class citizens.
So the Supreme Court had to decide Loving v. Virginia, just like the Connecticut Supreme Court had to decide Kerrigan v. Department of Public Health, in order to effectuate the rights of a minority to be treated in the same manner as the majority. With true equal rights afforded to lesbian and gay people, they are in a better position to come to the table as equals in democratic decision-making.
Of course much more can be said about democracy as coming to the table as equals. In the wake of Kerrigan perhaps we should be asking what other barriers exist to real democracy, what other barriers exist to keep people from coming to the table as equals, or perhaps from coming to the table at all.
Of course if this is correct reasoning
Filed under: Fighting oppression
I’m sorry that gays and others have been targeted by intolerant abusers of the initiative process. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!
Here in Colorado, my gay friend Jared Polis won the Democratic primary forCongress (http://polisforcongress.com), and was the single greatest force turning Colorado from “red” to “blue” since 2000. He’s used his wealth to fund Dem campaigns, but also to sponsor 2 very successful ballot initiatives, Colorado Amendments 23 (raising school funding) and 41 (preventing lobbyists from giving “gifts” to legislators). He joined in sponsoring 37, which mandates renewables for electric companies.
Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women’s suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (in 4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana (in 8 of 13 states) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). See http://Vote.org/initiatives for more examples and references. The media have seized on the problem initiatives. They generally kiss up to politicians.
Jared also supports NATIONAL ballot initiatives, with which we could stop the Feds from abridging medical marijuana rights, stop illegal wars, torture, etc., and get national health care, which Congress has dithered over since the ’40s, while all other 1st world countries got it.
Voters on initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for better and national initiatives is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org.
Evan, the situation here in Connecticut is that there is no baby – only bathwater.
Connecticut voters have to first vote in favor of a constitutional convention — an event that potentially throws everything up fro grabs. IF there is a majority vote for a constitutional convention and IF the convention delegates decide to take up the issue, they COULD create a state-wide initiative or referendum process.
But in the process, they would be creating a vehicle for the right wing to continue its challenges to same sex marriage.
From a lawyer’s point of view, if you read the CT Supreme Court’s decision on same sex marriage it is pretty clear that they are saying that this is a right that cannot be revoked by a vote in the legislature . . . it may not even be something that cannot be revoked by amendment to the state constitution. And it may be that it can’t even be changed by a constitutional convention.
That said, if there is no constitutional convention, the right wing pretty much has to give up on this issue in Connecticut. They can holler and scream but they can’t undo an equal protection analysis, just like the State of Virginia could not rescue racism when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriage was a violation of equal protection.
The right’s pitch to the public here in Connecticut, though, is that the constitutional convention WOULD allow them to scuttle gay marriage and while they are at it the convention would permit them to pass other measures such as the Three Strikes laws and laws creating partnerships with Connecticut and Homeland Security to keep immigrants down.
Even if initiatives and referenda would be very valuable here in Connecticut (and personally I don’t agree that they would be), the fact is that passing the constitutional convention NOW would embolden the right wing and allow them to create an enormous amount of completely unnecessary doubt and confusion about same sex marriage, while campaigning for other very socially harmful measures.
I don’t believe in cookie cutter politics. What works in Colorado may be completely wrong for Connecticut and vice versa. Here, the overwhelming majority of progressive political forces are 100% opposed to the convening of a constitutional convention that would open the door for referenda.
I’m not comfortable with that list Evan. With the exception of the poll tax (which affected poor people of all colors, even of people of color were particularly singled out) and women’s suffrage (a minority in political positioning but not physical numbers or, in some ways, even access) I see no advances in minority rights that came from ballot initiatives. The many more advances that have come through the courts are all up for grabs via ballot initiatives – and there are too many examples of recent attacks on minority rights via ballot initiatives to dismiss them as a media-created phenomenon. As a triple minority (a black queer child of immigrants) I’m not personally comfortable with that risk being taken in CT.
I am also far from comfortable with the people endorsing what is being referred to as direct democracy here – I’m assuming they have studied the process of appropriating and manipulating this new avenue of access to public policy in a way that others haven’t, and I can’t imagine they will form coalitions with people they disagree with or plain detest in order to show them how to travel that avenue to progress as well.