The Political Whore

As Florida careens toward a November date with straight-marriage-protectin’ destiny, I’m intrigued by a question posed by a high schooler to Karl Rove as he spoke to a New England prep school yesterday. (An event combining a day at a New England prep school AND a speech by Der Rover, how in the hell did I NOT make the roadie up for that?!? But I digress …) Here’s the account from Think Progress:

During his controversial speech at New England prep school Choate Rosemary Hall yesterday, former Bush adviser Karl Rove was challenged by a student “to explain how giving gay people the right to marry would endanger other people.” Rove dodged answering her at first, saying that the issue “should be resolved by a legislature or a referendum, not a court.” But the student, Choate senior Marla Spivak, continued to press him:

Spivak kept pressing. “You never actually answered, how does it threaten anyone?” she asked.

Rove asked, what’s the compelling reason to throw out 5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman?

What, Spivak countered, was the compelling reason for society to allow interracial relationships when they had once been outlawed.

The Spivak-Rover tit-for-tat (he said tit, heh heh) went on for a bit longer, but the central question remains:

“What’s so wrong about gay people getting married?” I’ll even allow it to be turned backwards for consideration: “What exact societal ills would banning gay marriage solve?  What specific good would come of it in Tampa Bay, for instance? Would our traffic move better? Would we have less crime? Would our environment be miraculously cleaned, or developers decide to stop paving the state with suburbia?”

(Full disclosure: I am a straight married man; my editor at CL is a gay married man.)

Brendan McLaughlin of Flashpoint had opposing sides on this issue on his show this past Sunday, and his blog details the shit he caught from some viewers who thought he was improperly injecting his personal bias into the discussion:

The flurry of comments on the gay marriage amendment discussion on Flashpoint included several requests that I keep my opinions to myself. My first reaction is, “…and deprive the citizenry of my wisdom and unerring judgment? Never!”  On further consideration, I realize that any expression of bias in my role as a moderator is fair game for dissection. So let’s pull out the scalpel.

You can catch the two segments from Flashpoint on streamed video here, just use the pulldown menu to go to Flashpoint and choose segments 1 & 2 from Feb. 10.

McLaughlin, who anchors the 6  & 11 newscasts on ABC Action News in Tampa Bay and who frequently suffers from lapses of judgment that result in me appearing on Flashpoint,  acknowledged that his objective role as an anchor changes for the Sunday political talk show. He also admits that he has no problem showing his opinion on issues that are “so wrong-headed.” Like banning gay marriage.

One of his blog commenters agreed:

That Gay couples seek to marry is not an attack on marriage. If anything it is an ENDORSEMENT of marriage, an acknowledgment that it far better to encourage couples toward monogamy and commitment, rather than relegating them to lives of loneliness and promiscuity.

Ask any Straight couple why they choose to marry. Their answer will not be, “We want to get married so that we can have sex and make babies!” That would be absurd, since couples do not need to marry to make babies, nor is the desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license.

No, the reason couples choose to marry is to make a solemn declaration, before friends and family members, that they wish to make a commitment to one another’s happiness, health, and well-being, to the exclusion of all others. Those friends and family members will subsequently act as a force of encouragement for that couple to hold fast to their vows.

THAT’S what makes marriage a good thing. Gay couples recognize that and support that. And those that want to prohibit Gay couples from marrying do so only because they don’t want to allow Gay couples the opportunity to PROVE that they are up to the task.

So I will come back to my central question: What’s so wrong with gay marriage that we have to ban it in our state constitution?

(And if you are opposed to the amendment banning gay marriage, then you might want to check this website that has the names and addresses of the 600,000+ registered Florida voters who signed the petition to put it on the ballot and ask your friends and neighbors listed there the same question. Do it in a nice, friendly manner, maybe bake a nice coffee cake and take it over to their house, you know the drill. We’ll cotton to no violence here at PoHo blog.)

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