Frank Rich had some interesting thoughts (yes, I actually said that) in his Sunday New York Times column. He remarks on the scant reaction on the right to the Iowa and Vermont marriage victories, aside from the silly anti-gay YouTube missive from Maggie Gallagher's "National Organization for Marriage." Writes columnist Rich:
Even the anti-Obama "tea parties" flogged by Fox News last week had wider genuine grass-roots support than this so-called national organization. ...[M]ost straight citizens merely shrugged as gay families celebrated in Iowa and Vermont. There was no mass backlash. At ABC and CBS, the Vermont headlines didn't even make the evening news.
Let's leave aside Rich's partisan belittling of Fox News - the tea parties are a genuine and important demonstration of opposition by a large number of Americans, including yours truly, to Obama's trillions of spending for government expansion. (Read Steve Chapman at reason.com: "The scale of the federal response to the crises has come as a frightening surprise to many Americans, who suspect the cure will be worse, and less transitory, than the disease." And I suspect they're right.)
If we were not so intent on adopting an air of cultural superiority toward them, we might see that libertarian conservatives who distrust intrusive government and want it out of our wallets and our lives are exactly those with whom we should be engaging in dialogue.
Still, Rich is right that Americans seem to have turned a corner on the gay marriage issue. Alas, too late for California, thanks to our own activists' organizational surrender on state anti-gay initiatives in November 2008, in order to better support Obama and the Democratic Party (and not offend Obama's anti-gay minority constituency). But still a good harbinger for the future.
Rich is also right that the GOP still has a long way to go, with those he labels as the party's chief contenders in 2012, Romney, Palin and Gingrich, "now all more vehement anti-same-sex-marriage activists than Rick Warren." That's why I believe it's all the more important to be supportive of efforts by Log Cabin and the new GOProud to work toward change from within the Republican flanks. The pro-marriage equality speech at Log Cabin's convention last week by Steve Schmidt, the Republican political consultant who managed John McCain's campaign, was a good sign (see Jon Rauch's item, below).
But much more needs to be done. And liberal Democrats belittling these efforts isn't helpful.
3 Comments for “Signs of the Times”
posted by Bobby on
Frank Rich is one of the reasons The New York Times is bankrupt and borrowing money from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim while The New York Post keeps growing and growing.
He can’t stand the idea that not everyone worships Obama and his dangerous economic policies.
Hey Frank Rich, get your ass out of New York, visit “real America” and discover a world beyond midtown Manhattan, the so-called “center of the universe.” Frank is so clueless, he reminds of Paris Hilton asking if they sell walls at Walmart.
posted by Carl on
“Still, Rich is right that Americans seem to have turned a corner on the gay marriage issue. Alas, too late for California, thanks to our own activists’ organizational surrender on state anti-gay initiatives in November 2008, in order to better support Obama and the Democratic Party (and not offend Obama’s anti-gay minority constituency). But still a good harbinger for the future.”
Until we see this issue at the ballot box again, there’s no way to know whether we have “turned a corner”. California was a tough fight no matter what, I think we were always underdogs.
It’s easy to say that gay marriage is now more accepted because people laugh at a stupid commercial, but many of the same people who snicker at this ad will vote to ban gay marriage in the privacy of a voting booth. And when those who oppose these amendments are still too busy pointing fingers at each other, we’re leaving the playing field clear for those who oppose gay marriage, and in some cases, any form of benefits for gay couples.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Steve wrote, “Alas, too late for California, thanks to our own activists’ organizational surrender on state anti-gay initiatives in November 2008, in order to better support Obama and the Democratic Party….”
I could have sworn that tens of millions of dollars were spent last year in the effort to defeat Prop 8. Now I have been critical of how that effort was handled too, but arguing that our side botched it is quite different from claiming that we were all too busy electing Obamba to care about defeating an anti-gay initiative. A complacent expectation of defeating Prop 8 had more to do with it.
As to Carl’s statement, “Until we see this issue at the ballot box again, there’s no way to know whether we have ‘turned a corner,'” — well of course we won’t know for sure until after the ballots are counted in the next ballot initiative, but we are not totally in the dark. The results of Prop 8 were a lot better than they were years earlier for Prop 22. The numbers are moving in our favor.
Apparently Steve doesn’t have enough things to fault Obama for, so he has to blame Prop 8 on Obama as well. But the new voters in California last year broke strongly AGAINST Prop 8.