The Washington Post's Ombudsman tries to respond to Monica Hesse's treacly article on Brian Brown from the National Organization for Marriage -- and makes the same mistake Hesse did.
It's not that you always have to represent the "other side," as the paper's Style Editor sermonizes. The Ombudsman notes that Hesse, herself seems to be on the "other side," as a bisexual who claims a prior relationship with a woman.
The problem is that she is a writer who is unable to detect when she is being had. I don't know whether Brown is "pleasantly, ruthlessly sane," but he is certainly deceptive. As the article shows (unless Hesse was deceived about this, too), he knows better. He claims (as does Frank Schubert, the Karl Rove of the anti-marriage movement) to know homosexuals personally, though like Schubert's gay supporters, they are kept in some undisclosed location the public doesn't have access to. If you know someone who is gay and not completely self-hating, how can you ignore any real option for same-sex couples you think should not be permitted to marry one another?
That is exactly what is at issue in Washington state, where Referendum 71 does not give same-sex couples the right to marry, but only the right to have their relationships recognized as domestic partnerships. Will Brown and NOM be fighting that battle as well? Brown's only, insulting answer to same-sex couples is that they should be treated under law like good friends, or maiden aunts. The extent of the equality he would grant them is limited to being able to contract with one another (which he doesn't seem to acknowledge would be radical only if it were not already legal) and maybe have the state permit hospital visitation. NOM's stand on Referendum 71 is clearly the key to their good faith; support would show that they mean it when they say it is only marriage they are trying to protect. Not pressing Brown on that -- in fact, taking him at his word as being supportive of gay equality -- was Hesse's gravest sin.
And the paper's Ombudsman never even mentioned it.