liberty and justice for all

Again and again, for millennia, we humans have failed to understand this: "all" doesn't mean "just the people I like." All doesn't mean "just the people who agree with me." It doesn't mean "only the people who look like me," or "just people related to me," or "this one particular group of people who believe what I believe." It doesn't mean "just those willing to follow my rules."

All means All -- every single person, no exceptions.

All is hard. All is painful. All is big and scary and asks that we be open and warm and vulnerable and welcoming and impossibly, improbably, astoundingly brave.

Over and over again, we fail.

A ruling on Proposition 8 was issued by the California Supreme Court. For those who are unaware, Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition in the state of California during the last general election (November 4, 2008), which determined by popular vote that the state constitution should be changed to define secular marriage as a state reserved for two people of different genders.

Some people have the right to marry. Some people have the right to accept responsibility for one another, to form one household, to be legally bound to care for one another in sickness and in health, to bear the burdens of the other, to lift up and hope with and carry forth with and love the other. Some is not all.

The California Supreme Court didn't actually rule today on whether banning equal marriage was unconstitutional, they ruled on whether or not the people of the state of California had the right to put to a popular vote the words of their constitution, had the right to change the laws which govern each of them and their neighbors. They voted that yes, individuals have the right to sway the government - which means that individuals also have the responsibility to exercise that right for the benefit of all.

To remove a few clauses from a particular statement we all memorized as children, in order to simplify it down a little:

I pledge allegiance to liberty and justice for all.

Those are the important words.

Every time the powers of this nation hold down one, every time the wheels of state turn the rack on some, every time the majority of us turn our backs on the few or the powerful claim superiority over the weak, we fail to be All. When it happens once, when it happens anywhere, every single one of us fails.

Today, the Supreme Court told the people of California that they have the right to change a law; with that right they have the responsibility to govern themselves, to create a system of equality where privilege is called by it's rightful name and everyone is given a fair opportunity at liberty and justice.

We all have that right. We all have that responsibility. We all have work to do, because we all can do better.

We all can be better.

First published at NYC to the Nines