A rainbow came out today. It came out in response to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling that the Constitution grants same gender couples access to the institution of marriage. Long and lovely and glistening with justice, this rainbow now spans the United States of America, stretching from sea to shining sea. It is a sight to behold, this rainbow. And, oh, so hard won. It was born of tears and sweat, of strategies and lawsuits, of fundraisers and letter writing, of rallies and marches, of groundswells of insistence that our gay and lesbian neighbors, family members, and friends have a constitutionally guaranteed and protected right to choose whom to love and whom to wed. The rainbow declares that a new day has dawned. The United States of America will never be the same again. In the land of the stars and stripes there is no gay marriage anymore. Just marriage. The rainbow rules, love wins, and there is no turning back.
At the same time, however, the rainbow of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition seems to have dissipated into thin air. Whatever became of that rainbow? Where went the promise that brown, black, red, yellow, and white could form a rainbow so bold and beautiful as to face down racism and overcome it? I am celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage but I am wretched and wracked, raging and in mourning as the Rev. Clementa Pinckney is laid to rest in Charleston, SC, having been murdered by a white boy who hated the good Reverend for the color of his skin, hated him so much as to terrorize a Bible Study and slaughter nine innocent souls in chillingly cold and premeditated blood.
These next days and weeks shall be a heavy march of funerals, nine in total, as the victims of a pernicious and rapacious racism are laid to rest in Charleston. There is no rainbow over Charleston today (or Baltimore, or Ferguson) and the rainbow that arches beautifully from sea to shining sea is made less bright, less iridescent by the absence of that other rainbow. The frustrations and pain of a stubborn racism persist and with them die daily the dreams of too many young people of color. They can’t see the rainbow. It isn’t for them. Despite the Civil Rights Act, segregation persists as a practical matter, and for too many people of color there is no pot of gold, let alone justice or fairness or equality.
The Confederate flag is coming down all over the South. Thanks be to God for that. But where is the symbol that represents what our nation portends to be: a lady justice blind to race and color, to wealth and poverty, to power and privilege. How can we marshall the twin forces of love and law to banish racism? How can we manifest that rare and lovely phenomenon: the double rainbow?
I am celebrating today and weeping for joy. I am enraged today and wretched with a deep and abiding sorrow.
Dear God, hear our prayers.