House of Eratosthenes

Forbes takes a look at the family-values folks’ contention that the polls must be flawed. The situation is, the voting patterns in the states are supposedly going in one direction, and the polls are going in another. So, supposedly, the polls must be skewed.

The op-ed concludes:

So, do [Tony] Perkins and [Gary] Bauer have a point here? Are the polls, which consistently reveal a growing majority of Americans supporting the LGBT communities right to marry, wrong?

Not a chance.

Indeed, rarely have polls from all sides of the political spectrum lined up so tightly with even the Fox Poll out a few days ago indicating that more Americans support same sex marriage than those who oppose it.

Well, I agree with Perkins and Bauer on the way this issue would go, at least locally, but I think they’re wrong and the Forbes column is right. Kind of an easy call. Same-sex marriage is hip and happening.

As far as what I want to see happening, well, I’m having a tough time getting my dander up about it. I’m not gay. Whatever passions I can bring to this issue have to do with peripheries. My resentments are stirred when I see politicians defining new classes of innocents to be made easy prey for trial lawyers looking for new ways to litigate. And, that’s what I think this is; no, I don’t think we need any more of it. I also see it as a distraction. We’re trying to figure out if a nation can be defended, by way of some mindset that comes up with every excuse under the sun to not defend things, unless those things are things that bring harm to other things. We’re also trying to figure out if a comatose economy can be revived, by way of some mindset that says there’s something wrong with being rich, and that every product or service that can cost money, has to cost as much money as it possibly can. We’re also trying to figure out — bizarrely — if a statement worded in such an unambiguous way as “shall not be infringed” might have a loophole. To me, those are the issues that really matter. Gay marriage is just a way to get politicians elected who are on the wrong side of those three issues, when deep down, everyone knows those politicians are on the wrong side of those three issues.

But there is something else that bugs me about the gay marriage. Or rather, about the people pushing it. I see it as an established fact that, if the consensus view is not already on their side of the net, it is certainly headed in that direction and at a pretty rapid clip. Same-sex marriage proponents are not behaving the way I would behave, if the consensus view was moving in my direction at a rapid clip.

I would not be taking this to the Supreme Court, or any other court. Why would I? The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If we’re in the process of creating a new civil right, isn’t it better to create it through a manifestation of the public will, especially when you believe the public is coming around to your point of view on this thing? Isn’t it better to tell the dissenters “Sorry you don’t like same-sex marriage, but you’re outvoted on this thing” than, “Sorry you don’t like same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court has ruled that you need to tolerate it”? We already have that situation with the abortion thing. Has that made it any less contentious of an issue? I’m imagining myself as a homosexual who wants to get married, and I can’t help but think — please, God, yes, let’s go for that first one, the out-voting thing. If all I want to do is get married, and not to tick anybody off.

There is one other thing the gay-marriage proponents are doing, in response to this favorable shift in public sentiment, that I would not be doing if some pet issue of mine were to be enjoying the same benefit: They’re applauding a bit too hard & heartily, for the politicians who are latecomers. They’re too accepting of their fair-weather friends. I’m writing specifically about Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama, who did their evolving last year, and as late as the year-before still hadn’t done the evolving just yet, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who evolved just now.

Why all these giddy congratulations on the evolving? After it’s safe? That’s not evolving, that’s known as wetting your finger and sticking it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. It is an old metaphor to be applied to the political class; it is not a term of endearment.

This is bizarre. We’re supposed to be talking here, according to the tedious litanies, about some kind of a “basic human right.” That makes it even more bizarre. If same-sex marriage can be compared to abolition, this is like starting to support abolition somewhere around the time Ulysses Grant starts his second term.

I care about gay marriage just about the same way I care about global warming. If you want to “go green,” you go ahead and do it, just keep it out of my face. I don’t want to be reminded of it constantly. I don’t want to be taxed for it. Let’s just keep it framed as what it is: A disagreement about an issue, between two mortals, and it need not be hashed out all day every day. But it makes me nervous when, in a weak, sputtering economy like the one we have right now, so many people can be told so easily what their priorities are supposed to be.

We do not need gasoline to be made more expensive so people will be given an incentive to burn less of it. If you really think that’s going to save the planet somehow, you’re entitled to your opinion, but don’t come crying to me a year later about the retail sales figures slipping. Buying retail usually involves driving places. Like, duh. And we certainly don’t need more excuses for civil cases to be filed against priests, wedding planners, and cake decorators who’d rather not participate in same-sex ceremonies. Again, you’re entitled to your opinion, but if we’re really concerned about how hard it is for people to make a living, then the last thing we need is for our government to busy itself with new laws that begin with the phrase “the sale should not go forward unless…”

And haven’t you noticed? That’s pretty much all our government is doing lately. Um, are we concerned about the economy, or aren’t we?

But it makes me nervous when, in a weak, sputtering economy like the one we have right now, so many people can be told so easily what their priorities are supposed to be.

Which is exactly why they’re doing it. As I’ve written at length, I believe the left cares about “gay marriage” to the exact same extent they care about “the earth” — it’s a useful cudgel with which to beat conservatives, and therefore to distract from their own ineptitude. Nothing more. After all, the press has to report something, and pretty much everything newsworthy these days is horrible, and reflects directly on their Magic Boyfriend, Obama.

My main evidence? The complete radio silence from Hawaii, Iowa, and Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been legalized for years. How’s that working out? If you relied only on the non-Fox media and leftwing blogs (which are pretty much the same thing, but still), you’d have no idea. If you relied on Fox and rightwing blogs, you’d…. still have no idea. Unless the left has some deep reservoir of tact and decorum nobody has ever detected, you’d think the Matt Yglesiases of the world would take a victory lap or two if it were anything other than an unmitigated disaster in those locales…. at which point Fox or, well, yours truly would be taking them.

Conclusion: the left doesn’t give one wet shit about gay marriage, just like they’ve suddenly forgot their deeply held antipathy to neo-imperial wars of aggression, Gitmo, warrantless wiretaps, rendition, and all that other good stuff. But it gets the pseudointellectual class all worked up, and that’s the important thing.
- Severian | 03/26/2013 @ 12:18
[…] Some cogent thought at House of Eratosthenes: […]
- Gay marriage and the big picture | TechnoChitlins | 03/27/2013 @ 07:20

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The Gay Marriage PollsMonday, March 25th, 2013

The Gay Marriage Polls
Monday, March 25th, 2013