“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” said judge Stephen Reinhardt on Tuesday morning in San Fransisco.
I couldn’t agree more. 
Last spring, I wrote a piece titled “Rights over Dogma.” The piece framed my opinion on the debate over same sex marriage. Personally, the article was something I took great pride in, and I still stand by that opinion. From my own ethical perspective, same sex marriage was never a religious issue. It was a constitutional issue. Tuesday’s decision was a direct representation of what it means to live in a country that is governed by our constitution and promises freedoms for all of its citizens. Ignorance, homophobia and a misinformed American public scared by those who carried their own agenda have blurred what this whole debate was over: the rights of American citizens who were simply demanding not to be treated as second class citizens. 
In the midst of an America “occupied” with the Oakland arrests, a heated election and a barrage of international protests, the fight for constitutional rights by the gay and lesbian community seemed to fall under the radar. For me however, Tuesday’s decision comes as a momentous event that falls under this ongoing theme of a fight for democratic values. Naysayers would categorize the rights of gay and lesbians to marry as a social issue in its own realm, something that pertains to just a specific community in California. But frankly, it’s not. This decision overturning Proposition 8 made by ninth circuit of the federal court of appeals was a triumph, not just for the gay and lesbian community, but for every minority group that has demanded its constitutional rights in the history of America.
From the protesters that marched in Birmingham alongside Dr. King to the more recent pepper sprayed students of the occupy Davis movement, the banning of Proposition 8 comes as a victory for all these groups and everyone who falls between. Because this is not just a victory for supporters of same sex marriage. This a victory for anyone who has ever held a picket sign for democracy, been blasted with a high pressure water hose, inhaled the potency of tear gas, tasted the drops of blood trickling down their foreheads from the strike of a police club, sat in a restaurant, and refused to ride a city wide bus route, all in the name of THEIR constitutional rights. 
Because this is America. This is the land where men, women and children have the right to be free, to dream whatever they want, achieve whatever they want, and to marry whomever they love.  Our forefathers established a government that held “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as its fundamental basis. I’m proud to say that today, the judges in San Fransisco, the residents of California, and the citizens of America lived by these standards. High five America.