Our country is approaching a watershed moment in the fight for marriage equality. I couldn’t have been more pleased to hear this week that the Democratic Party platform drafting committee has recommended supporting full civil marriage for LGBT Americans. If all proceeds as anticipated, the language will be presented to the full Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., for a vote in early September.
It is my sincere hope that the full convention of delegates will approve this plank, and I have no doubt that the votes will be there when the Democratic Party gathers in just a few short weeks. Once the party of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton takes this historic step forward, it will have finally caught up with the opinion of a consistent majority of the American public: that sexual orientation should not determine a citizen’s status, and that discrimination has no place in our statute books.
By seeking to add this language to its platform, the Democrats link marriage equality to the great civil rights issues the party has championed throughout its history. In 1948, President Truman led the party to formally adopt civil rights language at its convention. In 1964, when Mississippi tried to seat a slate of all-white delegates who had been elected by a process that systematically excluded black voters, it led to a standoff. Civil rights heroes like Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis spoke out, a compromise was struck, and the Democratic Party swore never again to allow a segregated delegation to be seated.
The Democratic Party platform led the way on women’s rights and youth rights, endorsing the Equal Rights Amendment well before Lilly Ledbetter became a household name, and a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to 18 well before the 26th Amendment made it official.
Without these pioneers speaking out on the convention floor, who knows how differently the great civil rights struggles of our time might have gone. It was on the floor of the Democratic National Convention where civil rights lawyer Joseph L. Rauh Jr. said that “we tied civil rights to the masthead of the Democratic Party forever.” Democrats should be proud to continue that tradition this year.
Democrats stand for the principle of equality because it’s the right thing to do. But it’s also never been more important to give the American people a clear choice on this question. When voters pick their president, congressional representatives, and state and local leaders this November, those in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state will also vote on marriage equality ballot questions. Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who once promised to be to the left of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy on LGBT issues, has announced that he opposes both marriage equality and civil unions for gay couples.
Romney’s positions are increasingly out of the mainstream — even within the Republican Party. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whom I had the pleasure of debating on CNN during his tenure, now serves on the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, a pro-marriage equality organization. Ted Olson, the firebrand conservative lawyer who represented George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore in 2000, now stands poised to argue against California’s Proposition 8 before the Supreme Court.
It’s time to get on the bus. There’s no place in our Constitution for discrimination of any kind. We are a country that aspires toward a more perfect union. If you wish to reflect on our social fabric, reflect on the fact that we have never stood idly by as our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our neighbors, and our servicemen and women faced discrimination. It is precisely our social fabric that makes “separate but equal” repulse us and stir us to action.
The cause of marriage equality, like all civil rights causes, is at its core about people. This delegate and proud champion of diversity, civil rights and equal justice under the law for all Americans looks forward to casting her vote for marriage equality at the Convention, because equality can’t wait.
Donna Brazile is a senior Democratic strategist, a political commentator and contributor to CNN and ABC News, and a contributing columnist to Ms. Magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine.