Get Ready for The Fireworks How a universally ignored issue has suddenly become an election flashpoint. If you had asked anyone six months ago what the major issues going into the 2004 elections would be the answers would most likely be the usual: the economy, social security and healthcare. Today, bewilderingly and seemingly out of the blue, one issue seems to be shaping up as the fulcrum on which all candidates must teeter, and inexplicably, it's the one issue that's been hiding furthest back in the closet of American politics: gay rights. In a little over a month Canada has legalized same-sex marriages, the Supreme Court has handed down a stunning decision in Lawrence vs. Texas that states that the government has no right to legislate in the bedroom and Wal-Mart, America's #1 retail chain, has included gay workers in their anti-discrimination policies. Most likely, before this month is out, Massachusetts will be the first state in the Union to grant marriage rights to same-sex partners. What's most telling is that most of the country is rather non-plussed by the whole thing. The two groups most in shock: The Christian Right and gay people. The group with the most to lose: The candidates for president come 2004. What makes gay rights such a major issue is that it is merely a focus for a much larger debate going on in America between the Red and the Blue. While it's true that the two parties have become virtually indistinguishable in their policies, their spirits have never been further apart. The conservatives see America as something defined by its values while the liberals see it as a country defined by its freedoms. Gay rights is merely a convenient field to wage the battle upon. To the conservative, gay rights, and especially gay-marriage, are incompatible with the American way of life, which they feel is assaulted on all fronts. This Mom and Apple Pie Politics is obsessed with making America safe- safe for its children, which is shorthand for "safe for our innocent way of life". To the liberal, gay-rights are the logical extension of the civil rights movements of the 60's. The core tenant of the liberal is that the more freedom and choice we grant to the individual, the more freedom and choice our society will gain on the whole. The gay rights movement crystallizes these fundemental differences in our political parties and so becomes the focus of much debate in the coming months. Because the "gay question" so clearly illuminates where a politician's heart truly lies, the question is the last one a politician wishes to address. Clinton was the first president to raise the gay issue, but while observing Gay Pride Month, he also managed to institute the disastrous "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy that led to en-masse discharges of service men and women based on their orientation. Clinton also signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to ignore civil unions performed in other states. That law now looks to be unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's Lawrence vs. Texas decision. Bush has two-stepped the issue by making small overtures to homosexuals (appointing gays in various positions) while appeasing the right by defending heterosexual unions as the only legitimate kinds of unions. If there's anyone who could most be harmed by the gay issue, it's Bush. His Big Tent will collapse no matter how he responds to the gay issue. If he comes out against it, right wingers will applaud, but he will lose those in the center who don't wish to appear to be homophobes. Even Cheney, who has a gay daughter, supports states rights to create civil unions. If he chooses to support gay-marriage, he will lose the support of the far right, which Bush can not afford to do. In the past, this issue could be easily diced into various conflicting policies, that while pleasing nobody, offended nobody as well. In the wake of the sweeping changes, this time he will be unable to get away with not making a stand- one way or another. This all begs the question- Why now? What has happened to make gay-marriage (for that's the ultimate battle) come to the forefront? What radical change has occurred in our country? A May Gallup poll shows the country is split 49 to 49 on the question of granting marriage to same-sex couples, however, as the Village Voice reports, "when Gallup took a step back and asked whether gay people should receive the fundamental protections of marriage, such as Social Security benefits, approval jumped to 60 percent." Is it possible that America, after so many nights of watching Will & Grace on TV has just gotten used to the idea of gay people? Is it possible that, because gay men and women no longer hide who they are, most straight people now know somebody in their lives who is gay? Has gay become boring for middle America? The changes that are sweeping across the courts and board rooms of this nation are not changing the world we live in, they are changing to reflect the world that we do live in. There is an endgame to all of this- and it's coming sooner than later. The laws regarding gay-marriage and gay-rights are currently incompatible with each other. Either gay men and women are fully consenting adults with the same equal rights as their straight countrymenin regards to visitation, custody, social security, etc... Or, they are persona non-grata. Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, a Colorado Republican, has reintroduced a Constitutional amendment that would define, once and for all, marriage as a thing between a man and a woman. Gay advocates are already preparing their strategies to bring the gay marriage question before the Supreme Court. It's a zero-sum game. Either the United States will allow gay marriage or it will ban it. It's a road who's end is coming up shortly and it's a road no candidate can stand on the side of- not anymore. P.S.- While my pseudo-dispassionate tone clearly favors one side over the other, I do not want to give the impression that I, in any way, support the rights of The Anna Nicole Show fashionista Bobby Trendy. I will glaldy queer-bash Bobby Trendy any day. You hear that, you pock-marked, gloss-lipped little twerp? BASH YOU. I fully support any legislation which involves flaying Bobby Trendy alive. If there's one thing that all Americans can rally around this day, it should be are unforgiving hatred forBobby Trendy. Somebody should fly an airplane into that guy.

posted by Japhy at 7/04/2003 12:01:00 AM || #