(no subject)
When I was growing up and learning about the Holocaust in a Jewish context, this is one of the things that was stressed: the Jews of Germany were assimilated into German society, as much as Jews are assimilated in the U.S. today. My European history is not good enough to verify that the assimilations were equivalent, but it's true that the Jews of German cities were not living in the shtetl. Reform Judaism began in Germany in the early 19th century. German Jews wanted to be Jewish in a way that was more modern and integrated into the rest of society. There was a hundred years of that before Hitler came to power. Jews were prominent in all aspects of German life, we were taught. They were doctors and lawyers and professors and merchants. They lived mixed in with Christians, had Christian friends. They thought that they were just as German as any other people in their cities.
The Holocaust was taught to me this way, as a story about how Jews can be singled out even when we think we are assimilated, to keep us vigilant. "Never again," is the most important teaching about the Holocaust, and the Jewish educators of my youth felt that we would be more on the lookout for the next possible Holocaust if we understood, deeply, that it could happen to us in the U.S., in our lifetimes. We were comfortable being Americans, but the German Jews were comfortable with their German-ness. They didn't think it was possible, but their German-ness was taken away.
During the election of 2008, one of my work colleagues asked, "Has it ever happened before that something was declared a civil right and then it was taken away?" Nobody could come up with one. Civil rights were declared and then violated, but in the newsroom we could not think of a time when a civil right had been rescinded. It's hard to remember how it felt in November of 2008, after Prop. 8 passed and took away a civil right. I remember riding my bicycle home from work and crying. It was just sinking in that 13 million people had just been able to vote on the legitimacy of our family, and they had decided against it.
Queers in California in 2008 were not like the German Jews in the 1920s. We knew that there was a very good chance that our rights would be taken away. The whole time we were rushing to get married, in those few months of 2008 when we could, after the court ruling went into effect in the spring and before the election in the fall, we were very aware that we had a civil right that was not stable.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled against Prop. 8 in the narrowest way possible. It's a victory, and weddings are starting up again. This time, nobody expects the right to be taken away again. But it can. The Supreme Court did not rule that there is a Constitutional right to marry. They didn't even rule that it's unconstitutional to take away a civil right once it has been granted. All they ruled on was the standing of the parties.
As soon as Prop. 8 passed, attorneys lined up to challenge it. When this happens, it's the role of the state, in the form of the governor and the Attorney General, to defend the state law. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to defend Prop. 8, so attorneys representing the people who put Prop 8 on the ballot stepped in.
That's what the Supreme Court ruled on this week. They said that those attorneys didn't have the right to appeal lower court rulings on Prop. 8, so they sent it back to the district court. That's it. If Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger had reluctantly done their jobs, this whole thing could have turned out very differently. The Supreme Court said nothing about a federal right to marriage. E and I are federally married now, but the federal government does not see it as a civil right.
There has been a lot of celebrating here in California over the last few days. E and R and I are going to go to Pride tomorrow, where Market Street will be filled to overflowing with ecstatic people. I'll be happy, too, but in the back of my mind, I am one of those religious school teachers, warning that the Jews of Germany were assimilated, too. We had a civil right in California. It was taken away. We have it back now, but I hope we remember, for ourselves and for everyone else who has rights, or doesn't have rights but should, that we need to stay vigilant - because a promise was broken once, and that means that it might happen again.
The Holocaust was taught to me this way, as a story about how Jews can be singled out even when we think we are assimilated, to keep us vigilant. "Never again," is the most important teaching about the Holocaust, and the Jewish educators of my youth felt that we would be more on the lookout for the next possible Holocaust if we understood, deeply, that it could happen to us in the U.S., in our lifetimes. We were comfortable being Americans, but the German Jews were comfortable with their German-ness. They didn't think it was possible, but their German-ness was taken away.
During the election of 2008, one of my work colleagues asked, "Has it ever happened before that something was declared a civil right and then it was taken away?" Nobody could come up with one. Civil rights were declared and then violated, but in the newsroom we could not think of a time when a civil right had been rescinded. It's hard to remember how it felt in November of 2008, after Prop. 8 passed and took away a civil right. I remember riding my bicycle home from work and crying. It was just sinking in that 13 million people had just been able to vote on the legitimacy of our family, and they had decided against it.
Queers in California in 2008 were not like the German Jews in the 1920s. We knew that there was a very good chance that our rights would be taken away. The whole time we were rushing to get married, in those few months of 2008 when we could, after the court ruling went into effect in the spring and before the election in the fall, we were very aware that we had a civil right that was not stable.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled against Prop. 8 in the narrowest way possible. It's a victory, and weddings are starting up again. This time, nobody expects the right to be taken away again. But it can. The Supreme Court did not rule that there is a Constitutional right to marry. They didn't even rule that it's unconstitutional to take away a civil right once it has been granted. All they ruled on was the standing of the parties.
As soon as Prop. 8 passed, attorneys lined up to challenge it. When this happens, it's the role of the state, in the form of the governor and the Attorney General, to defend the state law. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to defend Prop. 8, so attorneys representing the people who put Prop 8 on the ballot stepped in.
That's what the Supreme Court ruled on this week. They said that those attorneys didn't have the right to appeal lower court rulings on Prop. 8, so they sent it back to the district court. That's it. If Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger had reluctantly done their jobs, this whole thing could have turned out very differently. The Supreme Court said nothing about a federal right to marriage. E and I are federally married now, but the federal government does not see it as a civil right.
There has been a lot of celebrating here in California over the last few days. E and R and I are going to go to Pride tomorrow, where Market Street will be filled to overflowing with ecstatic people. I'll be happy, too, but in the back of my mind, I am one of those religious school teachers, warning that the Jews of Germany were assimilated, too. We had a civil right in California. It was taken away. We have it back now, but I hope we remember, for ourselves and for everyone else who has rights, or doesn't have rights but should, that we need to stay vigilant - because a promise was broken once, and that means that it might happen again.