DOMA, the Voting Rights Act and Me

Up until a few days ago, I did not think that gay rights could affect me. My reasoning was narrow: I'm not gay.

But, when I read the New York Times breaking news alert on my BlackBerry, (yes, I STILL have a BlackBerry) that the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, I wondered what does this milestone really mean. I thought, okay, gay people can legally get married...in some states, but not all states. And...

I didn't think this way brutishly, I just did not fully engage in the magnitude of what it meant for gay people. After all, to be honest, I had had mixed feelings about Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act just days before DOMA.

Historically, the Court seemed to plainly say (with respect to the Voting Rights Act): we are in touch with what civil rights meant to the country in the 50s and 60s, 70s and 80s and 90s, but today, it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Constitutionally, the Court said: we find that the right to vote for minority people is held to a lower level of scrutiny than it did in the 50s and 60s, 70s and 80s and 90s; it falls below the strict scrutiny standard, and floats somewhere between intermediate scrutiny and the rational basis test. (the strict scrutiny standard gets the highest level of review in which the challenging party must show the Court that there is a greater compelling government interest than that fundamental right -- voting is a fundamental right, marriage is not).

To me, it seemed as though the Court was taking away one right and giving another. Substituting decades of a necessary freedom to the impingement of another. As if, both rights could not co-exist or one suddenly became more important, more popular than the other. I was confused. The gay community was granted a right not guaranteed by the Constitution. Yet, simply, the right to vote was deemed constitutionally guaranteed and amended for all persons (African-American men were guaranteed the right to vote with the passage of the 15th Amendment; women earned the right to vote under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920), but taken away. The ruling was a reversal of sorts and yet, extremely hypocritical.

Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, wrote about the meaning of the Shelby County v. Holder, the case permitting the establishment of Voting Rights Act for The Grio:

"There is no “unalienable right” more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote.  Yet, last week, the Supreme Court made a tragic decision by ruling that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. For the purpose of providing stringent remedies where appropriate, Section 4 established a formula to identify those areas in the country where racial discrimination has been most prevalent.  Section 4 is the foundation upon which Section 5 stands, which requires states or local governments with a history of voting discrimination to get approval from the federal government before making any changes to their voting laws or procedures.  While the ruling did not invalidate the principle that preclearance can be required, it held that Section 4 can no longer be used – virtually rendering Section 5 ineffective unless and until Congress creates a new formula to determine which states and counties should be covered by it."

The White House issued a statement on the reversal of Shelby County v. Holder. President Obama suggested that while the Supreme Court acknowledged that "voting discrimination still exists" their ruling turned a blind eye to justice. 

Frankly, I thought about black gay persons. Does this mean that they can marry (in some states) but they might be hassled for legally casting a vote in other states? That in some future context, they have the right to legally marry in that state, but not to inextricably vote? This overarching justice by the Court still seemed as though it would not reach all persons.

I covered the Pride Fest Parade here in New York and was present for a press conference where Harry Belafonte, an award-winning African-American actor and activist, was honored as one of the parade's Grand Marshals. Belafonte, who is not gay,  spoke about injustice in the gay community and quoted Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." But Belafonte did not use the word civil rights to describe the gay community's struggle for equality, he instead, referred to it as human rights.

I began to wonder: weren't gay persons asking for a civil right too? Are the benefits that come with the right to marry considered a civil right or a human right? Is there an astute difference?


Regardless of whether the Court ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, the gay community might understand, like I do, that equality comes in bits and pieces. And this fickleness, without parallel comparison, proves that we have a lot more in common than I thought.

What do you think?