Plenty of people have weighed in on former President Bill Clinton's newfound support for same-sex marriage, but little can be added to Jamie Kirchick's piece in the Advocate, ripping Clinton a new one -- not that Clinton needs a new one.
In response to Clinton's stirring reply to the question of whether he personally believed in equal marriage rights for same-sex couples: ""Yeah. I personally support people doing what they want to do. I think it's wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that," Jamie is in fine form:
What eloquence! What moral conviction! Remember that these stirring words come from a man who, prior to the emergence of Barack Obama, was widely considered to be the greatest political communicator alive.
What is it about our equality that reduces the likes of Clinton, and even Obama, to Bush-like grunts and circumlocutions? Even in retirement, is Clinton still so shell-shocked from the nation's last hurricane of homophobia? That was 15 years ago, which is about 45 in gay rights years. Does Obama really believe that any reaction today to his leadership on repeal of Clinton's signature achievements on gay equality, DADT and DOMA, would be worse than what he faced during the campaign over Rev. Jeremiah Wright, palling around with terrorists, or people clinging to guns and religion?
The rhetorical scraps we get from these mighty orators should be compared to the simple eloquence of Meghan McCain, who has no trouble saying, "No matter how politically charged the discussions about marriage equality may get, the question is really a simple one: Do the rights and privileges we offer citizens include everyone in our country, or only some of us?"
McCain isn't a politician, and can articulate her true feelings with more liberty than an elected official. But Rep. Patrick Murphy is sure in politics, and he, too, leaves both Clinton and Obama in the dust when it comes to us. Watch how easily and authoritatively he responds to the charge that open gays in the military would destroy unit cohesion by saying the very notion is an insult to him and to the military.
The lesson here was stated best by a president who didn't have to deal with gay equality. President Clinton, President Obama, when it comes to gay rights, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself.
4 Comments for “Fear Itself”
posted by John Howard on
Meghan McCain is confused about the question. Yes, the rights and privileges include everyone in the country, Meghan, but none of us should have the right or privilege to attempt to conceive children with someone of the same sex. Same-sex conception should not be a right or privilege, in this or any country. We all should have to reproduce with someone of the other sex. It’s pretty simple.
posted by Bobby on
Meghan McCain has no credibility, her attacks on Rush Limbaugh, her false promises on appearing on the O’reilly Factor and not delivering, her cavorting with the leftwing media and her views on guns puts her republican credentials under question.
Think about it, if the son of Al Gore was pro-choice, pro-gun, and spoke against Obama, would he be seen as a democrat? No.
So it’s the same game with Meghan.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
John, I clicked your name and got the link to the egg/sperm thing.
Fertility and test tube children, so to speak are a result of infertility in the hetero population.
This is technology that clearly advances what cannot be naturally done, even if one is heterosexual.
When such technology was accessed by women WAY past their optimal reproductive periods, they TOO weren’t restricted, despite obvious risks to mother and child in doing so.
A 66 year old in Spain or Italy, became the oldest woman to give birth to twins, three years ago.
She died a few days ago, leaving her three yr old twin girls now motherless.
In the real world, one can say that most of this technology is a kind of VANITY science propagated by human beings who cannot accept, for one reason or another that they cannot be biological parents.
However, gay parents have a very separate reason, it’s harder to take away the biological child of a gay person than it is to deny them being parents altogether based on orientation alone.
Fitness to parent, isn’t a talent bestowed on GROUPS. It’s not even a natural inclination for ALL women!
But there is much presumption AND assumption and gender politics around reproductive health and freedom.
For example: there are a great deal of health and welfare benefits around hormonal contraception, as for women.
But what is the health cost and benefit to the same degree as Viagra for men?
Even pharmacists have started to claim moral and religious objections ONLY to women obtaining birth control, RU486 and so on, but have no such motives to restrict MEN’S access to Viagra even though it’s routinely abused and has caused deaths.
The extremes to which the fertility BUSINESS will go, is evidenced by the extreme ages of mothers, or multiple births being commonplace.
And even the mental, emotional and financial state (nor the liability)of Nadya ‘octomom’ Suleman wasn’t considered as much as the financial gain for impregnating her.
If we lived in a world where the human race was losing it’s viability to survive, were our number dwindling or a catastrophic plague were eminent in wiping us out, perhaps these extraordinary means would be understandable.
As might be the stigma of homosexuality and infertility.
But the fact remains that these stigmas are irrational given the facts of the sheer numbers of humanity and how many of them actually are born into poverty, neglect and violence.
Overcoming the stigma of not reproducing is a better and more workable social aspect of reality, than behaving as if ourplanet is in danger of UNDERPOPULATION.
When has that EVER happened?
Indeed, we’re more in danger for the OPPOSITE reason.
Multiple births are not the miraculous and compelling anomaly they once were. Fertility treatments have made it too commonplace and without specialness.
Despite the uniqueness of us all, being heterosexual or striving towards that goal is less reasonable to understand. That would make everyone even more common and of less value to each other. Less unique.
There was a long study done on what makes married couples happiest and who those couples were.
The happiest married couples were those who CHOSE NOT to have children.
The happiest people were those in control of their reproductive destiny, and yet were taken for granted as selfish, although adults who choose NOT to have children are the most UNSELFISH in comparison to those who have children regardless of less than optimal or safe conditions to have them as well as the optimal means to prevent conceiving them.
Actuality is truth, people.
And the fertility industry hasn’t had enough ethics clauses catch up with them.
But I hope they do and soon.
Does this world really need people who are 80 year old mothers giving birth and women having litters of children?
When it’s all said and done, THEY can’t care for them properly anyway.
We DO have an unnecessary and unhealthy obsession with procreation, way past the point of reason and rationality in our present situation.
And gay couples are the last who should be bearing a stigma for NOT procreating ‘naturally’ most of all.
posted by John Howard on
I agree there is far too much unethical stuff happening with heterosexual procreation, and I would love it if there were laws against IVF, sperm donation, surrogacy, artificial wombs, in addition to stopping the things that haven’t been done yet (genetic modification, cloning, and same-sex conception) that would be stopped by my proposed Egg and Sperm law. That law would prohibit conceiving a child that is not from the union of two unmodified gametes, therefore a man and a woman’s sperm and egg. It wouldn’t try and stop those things you mention, because that would run up against the claim that there is a right to try to procreate using those techniques. But it would stop us from getting even further down that road, and establish that there is no right to create people that are not from a man and a woman. That’s not mere prejudice, it is the only way that we can procreate using unmodified genes. It is not a bad thing that there are two sexes and we need to cooperate with someone of the other sex to have our own children, it is a very neat and good thing.