Let #LoveWin Palau
Today is a special day for many people here in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of same-sex marriage. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the ruling in what will become a historical text. He wrote the final words in such an eloquent and beautiful manner that it forced tears out of people across the continent. Okay maybe it was just me, I don’t know, I don’t have the exact statistics on who cried reading Justice Kennedy’s ruling but it was just so damn moving.
He goes:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embod- ies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people be- come something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be con- demned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civiliza- tion’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
It’s a remarkable passage. Years from now scholars will study it for its wit, candor, and its ability to reach right into the heart of humanity and confront it with such mastery. It speaks truth about something many of us have believed in and have known for so long: that each and every person should have the right to love whomever they choose to love; and to bind that love with the security of the law.
I’m not sure why I cried reading Kennedy’s closing passage. I think it had something to do with bearing witness to the cruelty and wrath of humankind unleashed on my gay friends for a very long time. It was even more vile back home in Palau where the whole rock felt like a big plastic bag suffocating my naive childhood belief; that everyone were equal and all was good in the world.
The insensitive and outright brutal remarks towards gay individuals, especially my friends and family whom I spent a good deal of time with, was an everyday occurrence.
That belief I had as a child could not be further from the truth. The insensitive and outright brutal remarks toward gay individuals, especially my friends and family whom I spent a good deal of time with, were everyday occurrences. The stereotype of a gay man being a predator to all and any breathing straight men (even if such straight men were limping oozing zombies … you get the point); the never-ending jokes and stories of the “mengol otaor” (a derogatory term that translates to “carrying a large driftwood”); the outright physical violence that happened from time to time; and other displays of hate and spitefulness, it was all too common.
Women too weren’t immune to the hate and stigma. While one can argue that the men had it worse than the women, it’s all the same nonetheless. No gay person was ever safe from the rumors, looks, whispers, and acts of belittlement and hatred. It was so widespread that it got to me at times and I would laugh at gay jokes as if gay people were born to amuse me and the rest of society. I’m embarrassed now for my child self.
While all of that were common, my childhood home was a safe haven of sorts for a close friend of mine. It was a refuge not just for her but for us kids. A retreat from the harsh world outside and a place where my belief of equality was entertained. The memory, experience, and weird honor of taking someone in and saying to her in action, “It’s okay to be you,” — with the support of my parents — is something I can never forget and will always fight for. The feeling of anger when another human being is stripped from his or her dignity and self-worth by others is something that stays with me until today.
This reasonable anger has its roots in believing that each person is worthy of dignity.
This same anger towards the ongoing diatribe against other people’s right to love who they love, also played a part in the waterworks I had earlier today. However, this anger is not all emotional but rather well reasoned; a reasonable anger towards the meanness and darkness of humanity for rejecting and marginalizing those who were born the way they are.
This reasonable anger has its roots in believing that each person is worthy of dignity. Like the Stoics, I believe that human beings are creatures of reason and therefore equal. Equal in their rights to live and flourish and equal in their right to be supported to the best of our abilities.
This is why I am calling for the Olbiil Era Kelulau (Palau’s congress) to reconsider its law against same-sex marriage and grant the LGBTQ community their right to, in the words of Justice Kennedy, “the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family”; or simply put: right to marriage.
As a country, we’ve already made progress by decriminalizing sodomy. However, that’s not enough and here’s why: when we grant gay persons the right to marriage — the highest legal union — we say to them, “You too deserve to be a beneficiary of your spouse”; “You too can have and raise children whom you shall hold all parental rights for”: and “You too should be the one to make end of life decisions when your partner is laying on his or her deathbed.” These are just some of the legal rights that the law should give to all its constituents no matter their gender and sexual orientation. It’s a fundamental and legal rights issue, especially in the democratic world.
Those who argue for the religious repercussions of same-sex marriage are really missing the point. Nobody is forcing anybody to abandon their sacred beliefs. In fact, it’s not about the devout believers. It’s about others who have come to terms with their beliefs, their God, their purpose, and their way of life. I happen to know a bit about the Bible and I can confidently say, a true Christian should live with Love and by the example of Christ and the words he spoke at the Sermon on the Mount.
For those who say that marriage is a sacred union between a man and woman, ordained by God, are either ignoring history or are blinded by their steadfast belief that they have not considered our traditions before the missionaries came. Marriage has always existed as a contract between two people; and while traditionally it has always been between a man and a woman, or a man and more than one woman (as it was common in our Palauan traditions), the fact remains the same: it predates Christianity. The difference is, we have recently evolved as intelligent species in that we now recognize that people have different needs; that many people are not heterosexual and they too deserve to enter into a contract of marriage; that they deserve all the benefits and rights of the highest legal union that straight people already enjoy. But that’s that for the Christian objectors; I really don’t want this to be a religious argument for I would stray from my point: the fact that same-sex marriage is a fundamental and legal rights issue; an issue of equality and human worth and dignity.
It’s time Palau protects and treat its children the same once and for all and there’s no reason to wait any longer.
I don’t expect Palau to change its stance over night. Such dramatic shift won’t be easy. Social stigmas, group beliefs, and individual behaviors are hard to change and that’s okay. People are entitled to their own beliefs … we’ll get there slowly. In the meantime, however, our law shouldn’t take too long to recognize what the democratic world is already standing behind. Moreover, it should always be blind to color, race, sexual orientation, and gender when it comes to the rights and liberties of each and every person living under its protection. It’s time Palau protects and treats its children the same once and for all and there’s no reason to wait any longer.
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