(TritonRider) said:Steve I'd say that those laws at least in part were the response to the fact
that they expected to have Gay Mariage rammed down their throats. Reaction -
overeaction, and so it goes.
When Vt. aproved Civil Unions there was some noise and another vote, but it
was NOT a huge nationwide issue. When the Supreme Court here in Ma. declared
that marriage was legal due to OUR constitution that didn't have to blow up
either. The most of the rest of the country thinks we're off the deep end
anyway. What triggered the HUGE backlash was the activists screaming that they
were going nationwide now.
Extremism breeds extremism. They had to have EVERYTHING now, they and we, got
nothing. Even worse than nothing.
Pure stupidity IMO.
Bill,
Three days after an election is not enough time to know why it turned
out the way it did. If one ever knows, that is. One could also say
that no sitting president has ever been defeated during a war (that
I can think of, anyway). There are any number of factors.
For what it's worth, here is an analysis that suggests gay marriage
was _not_ the defining factor:
http://www.slate.com/id/2109275/
Briefly, Bush's margins were not any bigger in 2004 than in 2000,
(1) in states where an anti-gay marriage measure was on the ballot;
and (2) among voters citing "moral issues" as most important concern.
The author suggests rather that the gap between perceptions of Bush
or Kerry as better suited to fight terrorism explains the vote margins.
IMO, terrorism is the new stick for the Republicans to beat the
Democrats with (or boogeyman to scare people with, depending on your
affiliation), as crime was 15 years ago.
As for extremism in the pursuit of gay civil rights, often people say
to go slow. It is politically prudent, but the difficulty is knowing
when going slow is not going anywhere. William Faulkner (who was fairly
liberal for his time and place) famously said to "go slow" on the civil
rights movement in the South. In retrospect, he was wrong; the blood and
pain were inevitable. I don't expect this movement to be as wrenching;
IMO, attitudes towards gay people have evolved so much over the last 20
years, that 20 years from now, some tenuously peaceful accomodation will
have been reached, apart from the extremes, and most people will not quite
understand what the moral fervor was about. Just 37 years ago, interracial
marriage was still illegal in 16 states.
Ben
