Gay marriage as a political issue has been incredible huge in the news these past few days. Bush just
gave a speech (which is rare for him) on the issue. They're debating it in the Senate. It's front page news on pretty much every American news site, as well as headline news on every news channel. Yet, by and large, the denizens of DailyKOS seem to be ignoring this critical issue. Why? Granted, this gay marriage ban amendment has little chance of passing, but that's not why the Republicans are pushing it. They're pushing it to get their far-right base into a frenzy in time for the November elections. And we need to pay attention.
This is (unfortunately) one of the issues that is going to have the most impact on these elections, despite how relatively unimportant it is. You're all thinking - the Iraq War, the abuse of civil liberties, all of that has to be many times as important as this gay marriage ban issue. But this is one of the issues that the Republicans have made a lot of headway with in the past; it has a proven track record, and they are going to go for broke with it now, pushing ahead with this amendment to get their base energized.
We cannot afford to pretend the problem doesn't exist and hope it goes away by ignoring it. We, the Kos community, need to come together and confront the issue. Coming to this site today I was hoping to see some sort of diaries rebutting all of those fallacious claims I'm seeing repeated all across the headline news today. But I've found nothing. At our own peril, we are ignoring this. We need to be working together, focusing on the issue, and figuring out how best to respond. We need to make it an issue of civil liberty rather than religion. We need to be pointing out how "the sanctity of marriage" is a bullshit concept (when you look at the divorce records of these high-ranking Republicans who are spewing out this concept as justification for their bigotry). We need to be doing something, dammit!
We need to get the American people to wake up and realize how badly they are being misled. Every two years the Republicans drag out the same old schtik: "We're gonna ban gay marriage and we're gonna ban flag-burning!" Yet every time, as soon as the elections are over, like clockwork, the issue is quickly dropped. Many states have passed gay marriage bans enshrining bigotry into their state constitutions, and you know why? Not because gay marriage had any chance of becoming legalized there anyway, but because it served as a great vehicle to get those ultra-religious rightwingers out and voting en masse. Sure, they're voting against their own self-interest on economic policies, but dammit, gays are gonna get married! And so, like a charm, the Republicans have used this issue over the past three elections to get huge poll turnouts and swing the precarious balance over to their side.
We need to make a big deal of this issue. We need to repeatedly point out how the Republican leadership periodically makes huge promises to do something about this issue, only to abandon its voter base once the elections are over. We need to explain why banning gay marriage is effectively a form of discrimination that prevents them from enjoying the same rights (such as shared health care with a spouse) that straight people are allowed. We need to do something, dammit! But ignoring it, which I am seeing here, is the most damaging thing we can possibly do.