As most of you probably already know, the Obama transition team has set up a tool on change.gov called the Citizen's Briefing Book that allows citizens to post their ideas and vote on other people's. I think that it is our responsibility to make sure that the tone on the site is suitibly progressive. No single idea posted is likely to have an impact, but if all the ideas and votes tilt in one direction Obama's team will ahve to pay attention.
Below the fold I've copied a submission (typos and all) I made on a topic important to many people here. So far it is doing mediocre at best in terms of votes. Tell me what you think and how I can make the message more accessible to non-progressive America, not just for that site but for any conversation I have..
Repeal DOMA because "sometimes absolute truths may be absolute."
The title includes a quote from your book The Audacity of Hope, which I am currently reading and very much enjoying. The sentiment you put behind the statement is a valid one, that every now and then there will be an issue about which compromise is a mistake and there is a clear right and wrong. I want to talk to you about one such issue, one on which you have taken a position of comprimise and reconciliation that will inevitably be proven a mistake. Specifically the issue of gay rights.
You have repeatedly and honestly spoken out that you believe all Americans are entitled to the same material rights, but you still oppose true marriage rights for a large segment of the population. Marriage, like many institutions we discuss is a very loaded concept. With one word we convey a whole swath of ideas including, a person down on one knee holding a ring, a couple meeting at an alter, pledging their love, sharing a kiss, moving in together, sharing good times and bad, growing old, and dying peacefully in each others arms. Obviously not all marriages meet this ideal, but to refuse a group of people the right to even try is nothing short of criminal.
Conservative commentators often speak of the definition of marriage being under attack, but the true definition of marriage is a public expression and commitment of unconditional love between two people. If love exists and is not expressed through a wedding ceremony it weakens the sactity of the institution more than marriages between people who don't love each other. The idea that marriage is soley for breeding purposes insults the love not just of homosexuals, but of all couples.
Civil unions, even if structured to match all the legal rights of heterosexual couples, will never convey the cultural legitimacy that marriage does. By defining two different groups, civil unions would only enforce the idea that we are not all equal, that there is something essential that sets this group above that one. To put it in a historical perspective, what if segregated facilities really were equal? Would you permit segregation if black schools had the same quality facilities and teachers as white schools, if the mantra "seperate but equal" was actually true? Of course you wouldn't, because seperate is not, has never been, and will never be equal.
I understand that these are difficult times and that you need all the political capiital you can get to work on economic and foreign policy, but if ever you find yourself in a situation where there are no pressing crises I hope the anonomous staffer who reviews this site remembers this. Because "absolute truths may be absolute."
Thanks for reading