By Jeffrey Page

Marriage must not be a political football but a fundamental right. Some states understand this and allow women to marry women if they choose and men to marry men if they choose. In fact, we’re at a moment now at which half the half the people interviewed in polling say they have no problem with gay marriage.

Clearly, conditions for gay people will improve. Future generations will look back to our time and be stunned when they read about the people of North Carolina amending their state constitution – in 2012! – to ban gay marriages and civil unions. Twenty-nine other states have similar restrictions.

That time of unfettered equality will come, but not soon enough. For now, some still look at gay men and women with deep contempt. We may be headed in the right direction, but we can’t seem to move fast enough.

This story is about Tyler Clementi, a young gay student at Rutgers University in Central Jersey who entertained another gay man in his dormitory room, unaware that this encounter was being filmed by Dharun Ravi, his roommate. Ravi showed the tape as a piece of amusement – like a gay joke, like a pinky across the tongue and then the eyebrow, like an exaggerated lisp – to his friends. Clementi heard about this and, one day later, jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

Ravi was charged with 15 counts including bias intimidation (a fairly new statute in New Jersey), hindering an investigation, invasion of privacy. Never was he charged with actually participating in Clementi’s death, and a jury convicted him on all counts. He faced 5 to 10 years in prison.

And then, the ancient loathing (or indifference at best) of gay people came through. It was not enough that Tyler Clementi is no longer among us, not enough that Ravi’s camera was the instrument to get him to end his own life, not enough that Clementi’s parents are deprived of him. In fact, Ravi entered the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman for sentencing this week, and was not in a talkative mood at all.

He did not apologize for what he had done. He did not explain why he had done it. He did not offer to address Tyler Clementi’s parents. He even declined to address the judge. He did not ask to be forgiven. He did not say he would never do it again. He did not say if he finally understands the inhuman stupidity of what he had done. He did not explain what he felt for Tyler Clementi. He did not say that he has learned anything as a result of Clementi’s death. He just stood there, not uttering a word.

The judge said: “I’m not condoning what this gentleman did.” Gentleman?

“I’m not minimizing it. I’m not defending it.” And then he went on to minimize it. He handed down a sentence of 30 days in the county jail, and you could not have been blamed if you wondered if a person named Tyler Clementi ever actually existed.

Thirty days works out to about 48 hours for every count on which Ravi was convicted. Thirty days in this case is not a sentence but a minor inconvenience.

We will reach the day when men like Dharun Ravi are called to account for their violations of the rules of decency and the rights of others. It will be a time when men like Tyler Clementi are as valued and respected as any other deserving man, say for example, a Jersey judge.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com