It should be obvious to everyone that America is in the midst of a fast-moving revolution in the way that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals are perceived and treated by the law.

Only 27 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ugly decision in Bowers v. Hardwick upholding Georgia’s law criminalizing consensual sex between gay people.  It took ten years after that before the legal environment started to change -- and the pace of change has been increasing ever since.

A big victory came in 1996 in the ACLU case of Romer v. Evans in which the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment banning local governments from enacting human rights ordinances that recognize gays and lesbians as a protected class.  Imagine, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a voter approved state constitutional amendment that was designed to deny gays and lesbians civil rights. Animus and hostility to any minority group cannot be a basis for any law or public policy, the Court ruled.

Unfortunately, that year Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. (The former President now says that the law should be overturned by the Supreme Court.)

It wasn’t until 2003 (just 10 years ago) that the Bowers decision was finally overturned in Lawrence v. Texas – and suddenly, dramatically, it was no longer a crime to be gay in America.

In 2010, the ACLU of Florida finally won a court ruling striking down Florida’s ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians. And just last year, voters in three states enacted marriage equality by popular vote, and the voters in a fourth state defeated an anti-gay constitutional amendment.

All of this occurred in a context of unrelenting advocacy from many groups resulting in changing public opinion.

Just a few decades ago, being gay was considered a mental illness. Fast forward to last year when a sitting U.S. President running for re-election endorsed marriage equality. And now a sitting Republican U.S. Senator announced that he too has “evolved” on this issue.

It’s in this context of rapid change that this week the Supreme Court takes up the case of Edie Windsor.  Every civil rights movement has a face – Rosa Parks for racial equality, Lilly Ledbetter for gender equity in the workplace, Mildred and Richard Loving for inter-racial marriage, Martin Gill for the right to be a parent, and now Edie Windsor for the right to marry.

Edie is 83 years old.  She moved to New York 60 years ago to, in her words, “let myself begay.”  In 1963, she met the love of her life, Thea Spyer.

Edie was a rising star at IBM, working as a computer programmer in a field dominated by men.  Thea was a psychologist and accomplished violinist. Two years after their first meeting, they began what Edie called “a very long engagement.”

When Thea developed multiple sclerosis in 1977, Edie quit her job to care for Thea full time.  In May 2007, thirty years after Thea’s diagnosis, they decided they were running out of time, so the couple went to Canada and got married. Thea died in 2009.

Following Thea’s death, Edie received a federal estate tax bill of $363,000 because the federal government, enforcing DOMA,  did not consider Edie to be Thea’s spouse.  The tax bite hurt, but what Edie has said hurt more was that the bill was a statement that in the eyes of the government their devoted 46 year relationship meant nothing – they were nothing more than legal strangers.

The ACLU and the law firm Paul Weiss intervened on Edie’s behalf, and the rest is history. The federal appeals court in New York ruled in Edie’s favor, and now the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case.

It might not be smart to make predictions about what the Supreme Court will do with this momentous case – in a ruling that will probably come at the end of June.

But it would be naïve to think that the Court could stop the movement for full equality that is happening all around us, and worldwide. At worst, the Court can delay the change in attitudes and the law, they cannot prevent it.

Note: This piece has also appeared in whole or in part in the following outlets: South Florida Sun Sentinel, Key West Citizen, Pensacola News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, Florida Times Union, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Palm Beach Post, Florida Voices, Naples Daily News, Tampa Tribune, Gainesville Sun, and The Los Angeles Times.

"The tactics of voter suppression have changed since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. It is less common that people of color face violence or are murdered when they try to exercise their fundamental rights as a citizen.

Instead, bureaucrats purge voter rolls and legislators restrict voter registration activities. (In Florida, a majority of Black and Hispanic voters register through volunteer voter registration programs.) Legislators also cut back on early voting that in effect shuts down programs like “Souls to the Polls” marches from black churches on Sundays. (In 2008 in Florida, a majority of black voters voted during early voting days.)"

 

Read more here.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush showed himself to be out of step with the emerging consensus in Washington, D.C. that we should not address the presence of millions of undocumented immigrants, some of whom have been in the country for decades, by creating a permanent underclass.

Many viewed Bush as a moderate voice in the Republican Party on immigration, but according to his new book, "It is absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences — in this case, that those who violated the law can remain but cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship."  He has since been backtracking from the position in his book, written last year.

But actions do have consequences.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million people who have lived and worked here in the shadows for years, making significant contributions to our communities.

People come to America to create a better life for themselves and their families and because they are inspired by our ideals — among them, that anyone, regardless of background or national origin, can become an equal member of society.  Squandering this opportunity and dishonoring our values by institutionalizing second-class status would transform America into a country where certain people are forever excluded.

Commendably, Sen. Rubio and the bipartisan "gang of eight" of which he is a member, along with President Obama, recognize that citizenship is an essential part of immigration reform.  These key senators and the President have emphasized a roadmap to citizenship, not just for the DREAMers or high-skilled workers, but for all of the 11 million people in our country who aspire to become citizens.

But while we applaud political leaders for proposing a roadmap to citizenship, we are concerned about some of the roadblocks in Sen. Rubio's proposal — namely his requirement that the governors of states along the Mexican border must certify that the border is "truly secure" before any action is taken to allow people to become citizens.  This trigger requirement is costly, unnecessary, and could postpone the timeline indefinitely.

We already spend more money on immigration enforcement — on the border and in the interior — than all other federal law enforcement combined.  Our borders are as secure as they have been in 40 years.  We have met and exceeded the benchmarks for border enforcement in previous immigration bills from 2006, 2007, and 2010, including the number of Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol officers, the length of the border fence, the number of surveillance cameras and drones, and the number of detention beds.  And, this is at a time when net migration to the U.S. is at or below zero.

President Obama's harsh enforcement policies have resulted in the deportation of 1.5 million individuals over the last four years, more than under any other President in a single term.  Further, contrary to the administration's claims it is focusing on the worst of the worst, over three quarters of the individuals targeted for deportation and nearly one half of those who were actually deported had no criminal record at all, and a significant proportion of the remainder  committed only low-level offenses, like traffic violations.

The heavy emphasis on enforcement has had a devastating effect on families — over 200,000 people deported over a two-year period were parents of U.S. citizen children.  It has also been wasteful.  We detained 429,000 people in civil immigration detention last year at a cost of $2 billion, even though a great number of these individuals pose no danger to the community and are not a flight risk.

We admire  Sen.Rubio's commitment to enacting immigration reform that will provide a roadmap to citizenship.  But insisting on further enforcement first with no clearly defined threshold for what counts as a "truly secure" border as a precondition to citizenship is a mistake.

Instead, we should provide undocumented individuals with a straightforward, reasonable, and humane roadmap to citizenship, which will help restore proportionality and fairness to the immigration system.

Shalini Goel Agarwal is staff attorney, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida.

Note: This article originally appeared in the March 22nd edition of the Sun Sentinel. That post can be seen here: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-sacol-immigration-oped0322-20130322,0,5639524.story