In my last vacation post from Texas on Friday, I lamented the left-right camps we let ourselves get pushed into during campaign season, an exercise in political extremism that is at odds with the way I think most of us live our lives, which is to assess each issue as it comes, making the best decision we can based on the available evidence. A case in point, for me, is gay marriage, which is in the news again because of New Jersey court action, and which President Bush has brought up in Indiana:
"Activist judges try to define America by court order," Bush told the crowd of 4,000 at Silver Creek High School, flanked by local Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-Ind., who is running for re-election. "Just this week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is between a man and a woman."
At that, the crowd went wild, members shouting "USA," stomping feet and shaking pompoms*.
I have both libertarian and conservative instincts, and same-sex marriage is one of those issues where my instincts are battling it out, with no clear winner yet. The libertarian part of me says that what two people want to do, if they are harming no on else, is none of government's business. But my conservative nature says that marriage has been defined in one way for all of human history and we ought to be careful before we start messing around with it. Where that leaves me, for now, is that recognizing civil unions, giving gay couples the same rights that any other two people have by right of contract, is pretty much a no-brainer. But going the next step and recognizing actual gay marriages, with the government's imprimatur, is something we ought to take very slowly, through a state-by-state legislative process rather than by judicial fiat.
That seems to me to be an issue over which we might have a rational, logical debate, and I would very much like to participate in such a discussion. But in today's climate, it seems almost impossible. To many on the right, even acknowledging that there might be gay couples desiring to be treated with respect is a rejection of all sacred American traditions. To many on the left, refusing to move beyond civil unions is proof of a hardhearted indifference to the plight of all downtrodden people everywhere.
*The term, fellow journalists, especially those of you at the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, is pompon, not pompom, which is a bigger gun than most of you have seen.
