As happy as I am about the Supreme Court decision regarding DOMA, I cannot feel celebratory in the wake of the S.C. gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act and another very recent racist decision that favored White entitlement: http://www.firstmotherforum.com/2013/06/supreme-court-rules-against-indian.html.
This decision is so overshadowed by news of DOMA that no one has heard of it, yet it is a monumental blow to the rights of Native American and the Child Welfare Act that protects their children.
I am supremely happy for the victory of gay rights and the one step forward, and do not want to rain an anyone’s parade, BUT… I am at the same time terribly dismayed at two recent - almost simultaneous - steps backward against equality and the rights of non-white Americans.
We are not free until all are free. We are not equal until all are equal. I am sad, disappointed and a shamed to be an American when we can so easily stomp on the rights of peoples who have suffered such oppression.
Not to mention the fact that all adoptees are denied equality in terms of access to their own birth certificates – a human and civil rights denial in our own state – that is also ignored not just by the press, but by social justice activists as we focus all of our resources on one group. Read what NJ Senator Diane Allan has to say about this civil and human right issue here: : http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/06/the-last-and-least-recognized-americans-denied-equal-rights/
Again, sorry to be a party pooper, but I just can’t dance in the streets with my gay friends while Texas took just two hours to limit voters rights, a child is torn from a loving father, and the rights of adoptees go totally ignored.
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