On this day in history (homosexuals, marriage)

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

From my inbox "Encyclopaedia Britannica" <EncyclopaediaBritannica@et.britannica.com>

1954: On this day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the leading school-desegregation case, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka. The landmark decision overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which permitted “separate but equal” public facilities. Argued from 1938 to 1950, the case was successfully won by Thurgood Marshall—the attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—who argued against the school board's decision. Chief Justice Earl Warren spoke on behalf of the court, declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The ruling stipulated that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. The decision was limited to the public schools, but it was believed to imply that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities.

This is the basis for saying that civil union for homosexuals and marriage for heterosexuals is unconstitutional. Separate but equal is a misnomer in law - it is only separate.