Charles Kaiser writes today about why the same-sex marriage movement has not hit a brick wall, as the New York Times claimed this morning. The one point on which I disagree with him is New York. Although the Democrats have finally won a majority in the state senate, it’s not clear we’ll have a Democratic majority leader, because it’s only a one-vote majority and there are some rogue Democratic senators, like Ruben DÃaz:
Mr. DÃaz, a Pentecostal minister, has long been one of the most socially conservative voices in the Senate. He continued to say on Wednesday that he could not support as leader any lawmaker who would help make gay marriage become law, even if it were his own son, Assemblyman Ruben DÃaz Jr.
“I would not support anybody, Malcolm Smith, my son Ruben DÃaz Jr., anybody who supports that,†he said.
This makes me mad, but we’ll see what happens.
It might seem like an entirely different issue/right, but when (at the right time) openly gay members of our military are allowed to serve just like their breeding colleagues, this’ll present a tidal shift in American popular culture.
The JimCrow-esque statutes of states like AZ, CA, etc., will then be fully emblazoned in our popular culture, providing an apt contrast to the Free States in our union (by then, NY, CT, MA, VT, OR, WA and so on). Time is clearly on our side given the upcoming administration.
In the meantime, i believe it totally vital to start calling out str8 couples for public behavior that we, as gays, are often discouraged from displaying. Equality is frequently an uphill battle with many stumbles.
rob@egoz.org
Preachers should get out of politics for once and for all.