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07/19/2011
Andrew Sullivan, right/ring advocate
"If you’re a heterosexual reading this, have you ever considered for a millisecond that your right to pursue happiness did not include your right to marry the person you love? And that is why, over the centuries, the U.S. SupremeCourt has upheld the right to marry for everyone, citizen or even traveler, as a core, inalienable right, bestowed by the Declaration of Independence itself. The court has ruled that the right to marry precedes the Bill of Rights; it has decided that prisoners on death row have a right to marry, even if they can never consummate it. It has ruled that no limitations may be put on it for anyone—deadbeat dads, multiple divorcées, felons, noncitizens. Hannah Arendt wrote in 1959 that “the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right … Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.” And, of course, after a long struggle, interracial marriage was finally declared a constitutional right, in perhaps the most sweeping ruling ever, with the court declaring that civil marriage was one of the “basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival.” Barack Obama is a historic American figure not because he is black, but because he is the son of a black father and a white mother. He is the living embodiment of the pursuit of happiness that marriage represented."
-Andrew Sullivan, in a lengthy Newsweek piece titled "Why Gay Marriage Is Good for Straight America"
To answer the first question here: No, the vast majority of heterosexuals have never considered the deep implications of this fight. Birth into a heteronormative culture took away that need; a contrived "culture war" framework and a false sense of balance have kept heightened consciousness from taking hold, at least on the grand scale.
And that's the way our opposition movement wants it: Muddied and jumbled with carefully workshopped talking points replacing actual stakes. Also the very reason why me must be even louder, stronger, faster, and indefatigable in our principled efforts to connect the dots, first neutralizing the noise that has turned this conversation into an overwrought debate, then cranking up the volume on our just justifications. For human rights, not LGBT-specific ones.