Cross-Civil Rights on Marriage Discrimination

Bad news for civil rights last week on Prop 8. While coverage of Prop 8 stuff is more topical for the gay rights blog, disability rights activists remind us that this sort of discrimination is a shared issue.

From the article, Disability advocates in San Diego join gay activists to support marriage,

"Until the 1940's, it was illegal for disabled people to get married," recalled Linda Kwizdak (pictured [in the original article]) of San Diego Blind Community Services. "People were fearful of disabled people, and now they are very fearful of homosexuals. ...I've had a lot of arguments with people who voted for Proposition 8 who say that homosexuality is a 'choice.' It's not a choice to be what you are; it's only a choice to express what you are."

Kwizdak's point was echoed by a woman in a wheelchair who spoke to the group inside the clerk's office and said that her parents had had to fight for her right to attend normal schools instead of being shunted off to separate schools for people with disabilities.

To give full disclosure, the activism experience of my young adulthood was all in the domain of GLBT rights, not in the domain of disability rights. When I was introduced to the disability rights movement decades later after finally finding "my people," many of the issues were already familiar to me--and not just from the discrimination I've gotten from others because of my autism. They were familiar issues from my more active days with the GLBT rights movement.

Even though it's legal for people with disabilities to marry now, the fight to be seen as a consenting adult capable of marriage is one that many people with developmental disabilities are still battling. Some of the issues are summed up in this short article,

One of the biggest stereotypes of people with developmental disabilities is that we, or some of us, are children forever, have no sexuality, and are not truly adults even when we are of age. This is far from the truth, but leads to many adults being denied the right to marry, have children, or even have friends who haven't been approved by their guardian.

Connected of course to the large children problem and to sexual consent issues.

It's great to see members of the disability community supporting the GLBT community when it comes to this shared issue of right to marry. However, it's also important to remember that just gaining the legal right to marry, as the disability community has, doesn't alone solve the issue of discrimination. Denial of the right to marry for people with disabilities continues to be an issue in practice. Whether gay or disabled, both the legal right to marry and a change of socio-cultural attitudes together are needed.