File:Lush Cosmetics supports marriage equality (5847769498).jpg

The British soap and bath solution company Lush runs many retail stores in the US, including this one on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

I am seeing a political statement here - and I am pleased. Lush has come out in support of Respect for Marriage Act, a proposed legislation in the US Congress to enable federal recognition of same-sex unions; it would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriages Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex unions and also allowed individual states to deny recognition to other states' same-sex unions. (No other marriages are subject to such denial of recognition; for example, while marrying one's first cousin is illegal in half the states, such a marriage, if done in a state where legal, is valid in every state.) Under US federal law, marriage has 1,138 specific benefits that are not available at all to unmarried couples, or married same-sex couples for that matter.

Allowing states to deny marriage recognition, combined with the ability to put up civil rights for popular vote (pretty bad idea, regardless of whose rights), resulted in a flurry of ballot initiatives enabling states to deny recognition of gay marriages. California had Proposition 22 in 2000 to do just that, and while it was declared unconstitutional in 2008 and gay marriages were legally started that year, they were stopped in just 4 1/2 months with a state constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, which is now, in turn, declared in violation of the US federal constitution. In California, a huge influx of theocratic immigrants thanks to partisan conservative immigration policies, and the inability of white liberals to put together messages that resonate with immigrant and ethnic communities (in a state that is nearing Latino majority), ensured passage of both 22 and 8.