Gay Marriage:  Postmortem

Apologies for not finishing this up yesterday; the weekend here in Dubai is Thursday and Friday so it's harder to stay in a writing routine those days.

Additionally, the completion of the Senate vote, rejecting the gay marriage amendment (technically, it was a vote to stop the filibuster, but the effect and the votes were the same) without it even receiving a bare majority, sort of deflated my desire to really put the work in on this. 

So I'll be brief.

Now that the issue is pretty much dead (and it never was going to pass--the whole thing was a political ploy to energize conservatives and split moderates) the question is this:  what next?

The answer, in terms of action taken, is nothing.  A few states may pass laws affirming that marriage is between a man and a woman, or whatever.  A few others will legalize civil unions or even marriage.  Nationally, nothing will happen.

Bush will continue to talk about this in stump speeches, and Kerry and Edwards will continue to dodge the issue in an unprincipled way by talking about civil unions, which are marriages without the name.  A totally unprincipled, weak-willed cop-out.

And then, within thirty years or so, we'll look back on this and feel amazed and embarrassed that it was ever a controversy.

Next week, a more challenging topic:  Global Warming



1:07:15 PM     Comment? []