#1
Posted: 11/14/06 at 3:59pm
I urge everyone to read the chapter on gay marriage in former Senator John Danforth's "Faith and Politics." He's a Christian conservative three-term Republican who comes to some startling conclusions about many social issues (for example, he passionately supports stem-cell research.) On gay marriage, he acknowledges that he never supported gay rights (including nondiscrimination policies) until a delegation of gay people came to Washington to meet with him. He disagrees with the Massachusetts court ruling permitting same-sex marriage (somewhat naively believing that "society might have worked out this issue naturally in time without judicial activism") but supports committed same-sex unions and fiercely opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment. ("The Constitution defines the relationship of the government to its people. It does not make social policy. When it attempted to do so with Prohibition, it was a notorious failure.") Senator Danforth may be a career politician with a rhetorical style of writing, but his closing analysis is surprisingly sharp--"Calling it 'defense of marriage' makes it sound like something loftier than gay bashing. But it is gay bashing." It seems to me that this is the kind of questioning, skeptical mind we need to win if we are to make any headway on gay marriage. Not the friends who already support us, and not the screaming evangelicals (who, despite what they may believe, are another minority.)
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
