posted 2007/08/12 at 21:50
It's kind of been a recurring theme in our culture over the past dozen years or so that right-wing politicians and pundits will often make pronouncements about certain television shows or movies or albums or what have you without actually having seen the media in question. Stephen Colbert parodies this quite effectively with his "Movies that are Destroying America" segment on The Colbert Report. This is why I've held off on making comments about the recent GLBT-themed Presidential candidate debate on Logo, because I don't get Logo on my cable and I haven't been able to get the online feed of the debate to work on my computer. I did, however, read news coverage of the debate online and also catch Alison Stewart's recap of the debate on Countdown, and for lack of anything better to go on, I think I'm going to have to make comments based on these secondhand accounts instead of the debate itself.
If there was one thread that tied together all the recaps of the debate I've ingested, it's that on one side you had Kucinich and Gravel, who are both for legalizing gay marriage and doing it now; and on the other side were the other Democratic candidates (or at least the ones who bothered to show up) who weren't. (Although, correct me if I'm wrong, but Obama hasn't actually said he is opposed to gay marriage, he's just pushed civil unions to the nth degree.) The common theme among the other candidates seemed to be this notion of what was "possible," this idea that legalizing gay marriage isn't "possible" now but civil unions might be "possible" under the right circumstances. Not that I'm going to question all the polls and such that point to public opinion about gay marriage, but pretty much any politician, let alone one as visible and powerful as the President, is supposed to transcend notions of possibility. Indeed, one of the marks of the great public figures of our time has been to challenge the notion of what is possible, and to encourage others to do the same. Does anyone think the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. allowed himself to be concerned with how "possible" it was to achieve full equality for African-American? Does anyone think Gandhi was concerned with how "possible" it was that his non-violent protests might effect change of how the British Empire treated India?
It is bad enough when we allow politicians and the like to talk to us about what is "possible" as opposed to what should be, but it is doubly damning when groups -- from the labour unions the Democratic candidates spoke to before the Logo debate, to the GLBT community and the like -- also allow themselves to think only in terms of what they perceive as "possible." Kucinich and Gravel both offered the GLBT community what they want: true equality under the law. Yet, if the GLBT community had any kind of overarching group to give an endorsement as the labour unions do with the AFL-CIO, everyone knows full well that they wouldn't be giving their endorsement to Kucinich or Gravel because of course it isn't "possible" that either could get elected because they don't have the big money or they don't have that "Presidential look" or whatever nonsense disguised as the "Current Political Wisdom" says about anyone not named Clinton or Obama at this point. What does it say about us as a people that so many of us are willing to elect politicians who do not promise to give everyone the same treatment simply because we've been led to believe that change and equality is not "possible" for us?
In the 2004 campaign, Kucinich summed up the gay marriage issue perfectly: this is a civil rights issue, and civil rights issues should never be subject to politicial whims or notions that somehow things might improve if we postpone them. Gay couples deserve the same rights as heterosexual couples (whether that be government-sponsored "marriage" for all or, as I favour, doing away with government recognition of marriages, leaving that word to the churches, and giving all couples civil union status), and they deserve them now. More to the point, this country deserves a President who will put the principle of full equality above and beyond any other concerns, and will motivate the American citizenry to do the same. If the Democratic Party refuses to field a candidate who will put equality above this insulting notion of "possibility," then I don't see how they should possible expect to get my vote, or the vote of anyone else who has even the slightest concern about all Americans receiving equal treatment under the law.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon