by Scott Ott
(2005-03-15) -- A San Francisco County judge, who yesterday struck down California's ban on homosexual marriage, today ruled on the same basis that separate restrooms for men and women are unconstitutional.
Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer likened the division of washrooms to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be "no rational purpose for denying women access to men's facilities and vice versa."
"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional," Judge Kramer wrote. "The court finds that the legal principle of lavatorio proportio [potty parity] offers inadequate protections. In practice, it leaves women stranded in line while men swiftly accomplish their objectives. Beyond practicality, the idea that you can bar access to some citizens from restrooms which are open to others smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts -- separate but equal."
The decision was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Organization for Women (NOW).
"This ruling offers recognition that men and women are not only equal, but identical," said a spokesman at a joint ACLU-NOW news conference. "The bigoted era of sex descrimination is over. From now on, the United States is one gender, under God, indivisible."
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