JAKARTA, Indonesia — In a sign of just how far the struggle for equality has come, an Indonesian constitutional court justice was forced to backtrack and apologize after stating his opposition to same-sex marriage during a fit and proper test before the House Commission III, the country’s legal affairs division. The justice, Arief Hidayat, was asked his opinion and responded, “[I am] against it because it was unconstitutional and against [my] religious values,” reports the Jakarta Globe.
But Hartoyo, an LGBT activist and secretary general of OutVoice, a Web site devoted to all things gay, took exception to Arief’s statement and wrote a lengthy response deconstructing the talking points the judge used to dismiss same-sex marriage as a viable option (translated from Malay):
“Mr. Arief, if marriage is considered as a kind of Western culture and violation of the constitution of Indonesia, why in the West itself is a question of marriage still a debate until now? For example, in the United States, what is then the [opponents] of sex marriages in the West would say that homosexuality [is a] product [of the] East, South or North?”
Hartoyo goes on to argue many of the same points for universal suffrage that have girded our movement since its inception including the right to live in peace, free from harassment, and the ability, as taxpaying citizens, to fully participate in a civil society.
Arief, humbled by the young man’s reasoning quickly issued an apology on Wednesday stating, in part, “I apologize if my opinion offended the gay community. I will ask for God’s forgiveness.”
The story gained even more traction when David Mills, who before retiring was the only openly gay judge on Massachusetts’ appellate court, weighed in with a letter to Hidayat in which he wrote, in part:
“I wrote it to tell some of my story on how I came to be a judge, and what I lived through growing up gay United States. It was not easy, to say the least. Things are improving for lesbian and gay people here. It is not all perfect. In cities like Boston and New York, it is safe and very good for some of us. In many parts of the country, tragically, we still have violence against lesbian and gay people. That is changing. The judges and the lawyers in the United States have made an enormous difference. It is taken courage and commitment, but it is working.”
