One word: A court pays heed to principle

Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial, February 6, 2004

It's amazing what ire a word can inspire. Take the word "equality," for instance. The Massachusetts Supreme Court happened to utter it this week, and now it seems the world's on fire. "Profamily" groups are having fits; lawmakers are spitting tacks; presidential wannabes are shifting awkwardly in their seats, and the president himself is spouting sanctimony about the "sanctity" of marriage. So much fury, and why? Because the top judges in a single eastern state came to the only conclusion they could: that people should be treated equally.

A shocking concept, it must be granted, and this isn't the first time its mention has caused a stir. When a Philadelphian named Thomas Paine decried the enslavement of blacks as "contrary to the natural dictates of conscience" in 1775, readers responded with fury. Many Americans were equally taken aback a century and a half later when women claimed an entitlement to vote. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s insistence that black people are entitled to every right the government confers on whites was not so long ago regarded as a bizarre and radical notion.

So it always seems to go when the word "equality" is invoked and then honored in halls of justice. What was once unthinkable becomes an irritating fact of life - and, after a while, is accepted as a reflection of the American ethic.

That all people should be treated equally, after all, is one of this country's founding assumptions. And as time has advanced, so has the American understanding of what people deserve and what equality truly means. Thus has yesterday's common practice come to be regarded as uncommon cruelty. Thus have Americans come to acknowledge the dignity - and the commonality - of all human beings.

Yet often this broadening of the public mind has come about only - or at least largely - because America's courts have insisted on it. The history of U.S. jurisprudence is a tale of an evolving society - one that early on regarded only male landowners as fully worthy of the Constitution's promises and that, decade upon decade, has come to recognize the rights of all people.

So when the Massachusetts high court ruled on Wednesday that Americans cannot be forbidden to marry because of their sexual orientation, it was merely following a path this country has long been walking.

The destination of the path, of course, is equality - and the journey is rarely smooth. But that's the burden that comes with the blessing of living in a society built on fairness. As the courts note the still-unfulfilled promises of our federal and state constitutions, Americans are asked to strive yet again to meet the demands of tolerance. People who cringe at the phrase "gay marriage" find themselves obliged to transcend personal judgment so that others may live according to their own lights.

The transcendence may not be easy, but it's the American way. This country's citizens have been relearning the meaning of "equality" with each passing generation. The Massachusetts court has offered them another opportunity - which they have no choice but to seize.

'Freedom to Marry Rings' image upper right © H. Mitchell.