Is now the time for the Gay Marriage issue to be fought and won?
Since I think perspective and context are critical to the argument I'm about to make, I'm going to give you a little.
I'm a 58 year old man, I live in a small Rocky Mountain city, I don't have any gay friends. I've worked with and been casually involved with gay people at social events with gay friends of friends, or gay friends of my wife, but that is about it. I strongly believe that all Americans are entitled to the same legal rights. I volunteered a lot of hours for Barack Obama. I've volunteered before for progressive/Left candidates and you don't have to be friend or a keen observer of recent political history to know that I've been disappointed a few times in the last 30 years or so.
We are at an incredibly difficult point in our countries history. Economically and socially we are likely to face a number of shocks in the next few years; financial collapse, peak oil, global warming, increasing population and declining living standards, are a few of the most serious that easily come to mind. No doubt some of you could add to that list, and it would require a Churchillian mind to seriously argue that any two from the list are not highly credible.
Socially and economically, Our country has paid a staggering price for the successful tactics of the Republican Party. Divisive wedge issue politics has served as a Trojan Horse for the right to unleash "Supply-side" economics on the country with devastating results. And they are not through......God help us if Obama's economic plan should fail, or be too little too late. The Heritage and Cato Foundations will hemorrage hours of talking head interviews with "experts" who will gleefully serve up the most bitter and draconian recipe of economic "transformation", all the while being hailed as wizards in the media. If that happens, the percentage of our 20's age readers who will be able to offer to their children, a standard of living anywhere near how they were raised, will almost certainly be in the single digits.
The point is; do we want to take any chance that the gay right to marry issue will be played to in a way that will distract from Democratic chances to follow through with a desperately needed progressive agenda? Is the use of the term "Marriage" important enough to bring this to a head now, when we can almost certainly do something with "Civil Union" that will provide all the appropriate legal rights? Some of you may not believe this issue has the clout to be the next civil war on the scale of abortion rights, but I'm not so sure. That is the essense of the issue on a legal basis, is it not? Do you or don't you have the same legal rights to property, inheritance, cohabitation etc as everyone else? We can't legislate anyones acceptance, for a significant percentage of the population, that will only come with time.
I know you will think; "that's easy for him to say, not being gay and not having any gay friends or relatives", but it is none the less an important consideration, one that should weigh into any determination of the timing of a movement which we all know will be inevitably successful, as long as we are the United Sates.