In the afterglow of yesterday’s monumental ruling on Prop 8 I’ve begun to see the stirrings of anger among progressives towards the overly careful Obama position on gay marriage. It’s unquestionably a fence-straddling position and a disappointingly outdated circa 2007-8 one at that. One hopes Obama will find some courage on this issue (we all know where he actually stands and is simply unwilling to engage this issue now for political reasons), but in the meantime advocates for marriage equality should be focusing their ire at the forces of reaction and retrenchment not obsessing on the caution of our allies (I’m looking at you John Aravosis).
The GOP has in recent months embraced every conceivable bogeyman in order to scare their base to the polls and many do so cynically for political advantage. From African American revanchists, communism, Islam, anchor babies and a general off-white menace, they’ve now once again begun to activate one of their old favorites -- those afflicted with The Gay. I think hearing Newt Gingrich this last week demagoguing both the “Ground Zero Mosque” and the Prop 8 decision (while cutely tying it in with the vote on Kagan today) put me over the top on this. Gingrich doesn’t really care about either of these issues, but he cynically knows it will energize the reptile brains of the Republican base for the fall elections.
Let’s stay focused on the true enemy and not tie ourselves in knots when our politicians act like politicians. There is no moral equivalence between our side being pussies and their side being evil. And, yes, Nate Silver is right when he tweets, “In 30 years time, the fact that the Barack Obama was opposed to gay marriage is going to look really silly.”
PS-I’m not against pressuring Obama from the left on this and tons of other issues, but I think some on the left lose all sense of proportion when their leaders are too cautious.
