Stand in the Place Where You Are
In American jurisprudence, in order to sue someone, you have to prove that you have actually been harmed. There are some exceptions to this, but that’s the general principle. It’s called “standing”.* In the cases surrounding California’s Proposition 8, for complicated reasons**, the group that defended the Amendment may not have standing to appeal the decision.
So, to appeal this case, someone would need to be found who has been harmed by gay marriage***. Given the nature of the decision– that gay marriage doesn’t harm anyone– this seems like an insurmountable barrier. I think, though, that there are people who stand to be harmed by gay marriage. A group of marriages which are directly threatened by State sanctioning of the right of homosexuals to be happy.
I am speaking, of course, of the “over 2 million couples secretly struggling with homosexuality in their marriages.” That’s 2 million marriages where at least one partner is trapped into performing a lie every day in order to win social approbation. If it becomes policy of the government that there is nothing wrong with homosexuals- that gays and straights are equal in the eyes of the law- there are roughly 2 million marriages that might disappear overnight.
Of those 2 million people, I’m sure there’s at least 1 person who was significantly happier and richer being married than being divorced. There’s at least 1 person who can show real harm from their partner no longer have to live a lie. There is, in other words, at least 1 single individual of those 2 million former couples who should have standing to sue.
That person should be found and made into an icon for the entire anti-gay movement. Nothing, I think, would draw the issue more distinctly than placing a person who would rather live a false marriage against the rights of those who would rather marry someone they truly love.
*Legal friends: is “standing” capitalized here?
** If it were not complicated, I wouldn’t have said “might”
*** Gotta love the passive voice here, am I right?
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Standing does not have to be capitalized, unless, like here, it is the first word in a sentence.