COURSEY: A victory for every person

<p>You don't have to be gay or lesbian to appreciate this week's ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. You don't have to be in a same-sex relationship. You don't even have to be a supporter of gay marriage.</p><p>All you have to be is American.</p><p>The ruling, which effectively struck down the 2008 Proposition 8 that banned gay marriage in California, reaffirms this country's promise that every person is equal under the law.</p><p>Every person. </p><p>If you're left-handed, or African-American, or tall, or fat, or Republican, or blonde, or — yes — even if you are homosexual, you are protected by the Constitution. We all are. And no other person or group can take that away from us, no matter how much our left-handedness or tallness or gayness may offend them.</p><p>Here's how Judge Stephen Reinhardt put it:</p><p>“Proposition 8 operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority's private disapproval of them and their relationships.”</p><p>And while it's not illegal to disapprove of someone, it is illegal to discriminate.</p><p>“By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the People of California violated the Equal Protection Clause. We hold Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional on this ground,” the court wrote in its 2-1 decision.</p><p>That's the America we have been taught about, the America that was founded on the notion that all of us were “created equal,” the America that boasts its freedoms to the world. </p><p>All of us — every single one — should be proud to be part of this America.</p><p><i> Chris Coursey's blog offers a community commentary and forum, from issues of the day to the ingredients of life in Sonoma County. </i></p>