Gay Marriage in the News and the Frighteningly Spineless McCain
January 7, 2007: Lots of news on the marriage front.
Disappointingly, Massachusttes lawmakers moved closer to letting the public vote on whether or not we deserve basic civil rights. This editorial in the Boston Globe takes them to task.
Meanwhile, California courts say we deserve to be treated as equal citizens, an opinion they don’t share with the Governor.
The Seattle Post Intelligencer points out that since a growing number of people support our rights to defend our nation in the military, why don’t they support our marriage rights, too? “So now that we’re considering letting homosexuals in on our big, national sacrifice,” the article concludes, ”maybe we can also let them get married. Just an idea.”
Don’t ask John McCain, who Vanity Fair reports, has been inscrutable. Here’s an exerpt from the article, in which he’s apparently vying for the Most Craven Politician of the Year Award. His politically motivated pandering at the expense of our families is just tragic.
It is three weeks before midterm elections that will prove to be a decidedly mixed bag for McCain. His party will experience the electorate’s repudiation of the war in Iraq, which McCain has always supported, and at the same time the voters will repudiate the cozy and corrupt Washington culture as a whole, which McCain has always loathed. Matthews wants to know McCain’s views on the prevalence of gay people in all walks of life, a subject whose predicate is the scandal involving Representative Mark Foley and his come-hither instant-messaging with congressional pages. “Should gay marriage be allowed?,” Matthews asks.
“I think that gay marriage should be allowed, if there’s a ceremony kind of thing, if you want to call it that,” McCain answers, searching in vain for the less loaded phrases he knows are out there somewhere, such as “commitment ceremony” or “civil union.” “I don’t have any problem with that, but I do believe in preserving the sanctity of the union between man and woman.” It may not be clear just what McCain is trying to say, but it’s easy to see how his words could be skewed in a direction that the Republican right might not like at all.
Fast-forward to the next commercial break, during which McCain and Matthews reposition themselves from the stage to the auditorium floor to take questions from the students. McCain’s longtime political strategist, John Weaver, a lanky, laconic Texan, moves in to whisper some advice. The next question is about the pending federal farm bill, and McCain repeats his long-standing opposition to certain agricultural subsidies.
But then, out of nowhere, he adds, “Could I just mention one other thing? On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe if people want to have private ceremonies, that’s fine. I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal.” There: he said it, the right words for his right flank. It might seem that this audience, the sons and daughters of a socially conservative and culturally traditional bellwether state, would accept, if not approve of, what McCain has just declared. But they are the Wi-Fi wave of the future, and they can smell a pander bear as surely as they can a hog lot. They erupt in a chorus of deafening boos. “Obviously some disagreement with that last comment,” McCain says tightly. “Thank you. It’s nice to see you.”
Moments later, McCain remounts the stage for the program’s final segment, and he bores into Weaver, standing quietly in the wings, with a cold look that seems to mingle irritation at Weaver’s whispered advice with regret that he took it, and demands, almost hisses, “Did I fix it? Did I fix it?”