Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), currently wooing the leftwing of the Democratic Party in an attempt to outflank Hillary in the 2008 presidential primaries, announced last weekend his support for allowing same-sex couples to marry: That's fine in and of itself. We want Democrats to pony up something real while they rake in LGBT dollars, and Hillary's ongoing support for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), while making kissy face with her adoring and star-struck lesbigay fan club, is quite sickening.
But to judge from the Feingold-praise unleashed by HRC and NGLTF, you'd think that all we have to do is get the leftwing of the leftwing party on board and our deliverance is nigh. In truth, coming on the heels of Feingold's grandstanding attempt to censure George W. for listening in on the international calls of terror suspects, the danger is that gay marriage, yet again, gets conflated with the rest of the crazy left agenda in all its relentless silliness.
So Sen. Feingold did a good thing, joining fellow senators
Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden
(D-Ore.) in supporting marriage equality. But it's going to take
the support of the center as well as the left to make a dent in
DOMA, a fact apparently unrecognized by HRC, NGLTF and much of the
rest of the Washington-based "send us your money" crowd.