If the last few months are any indication, 2004 will likely see the groundwork laid for a national civil rights debate: whether gays are entitled to equal marriage rights. Recent legal victories for gay couples in the high courts of Vermont and Massachusetts — countered by threats of new state and national amendments banning same-sex marriage — have led politicians to finally begin to deem the issue worthy of debate.

Equal rights in all spheres of public and private life for those who are gay should be a given for a nation that intellectually and legally cherishes equality and freedom.

It is in this spirit that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has nobly granted marriage licenses to gay couples in the name of the California Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Troublesome as this may seem to California voters who in 2000 passed Proposition 22 forbidding same-sex marriage, Newsom and supporters are correct in their claims: The infringement of a population’s constitutional civil rights takes precedence over Proposition 22. Newsom’s action will inevitably force the issue to the California Supreme Court, which will hopefully rule that the state constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, as did the Massachusetts Supreme Court with a similar statute.

If only other democrats were so bold. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) must stop skirting the issue and support gay marriage, especially in light of President George W. Bush’s recent call for a discriminatory national amendment banning gay marriage.