A Prop 8 challenge for swankers

[innerSpaceman]

I'm not saying McCain's better on the issue. I'm saying nothing turns me off about a politician much more than taking BOTH sides of an issue via cowardice or expediency.

I understand Obama thinks he can't get elected if he supports gay marriage. But coming out against Prop 8 IS supporting existing gay marriage rights. He can't have it both ways ... at least not with me. Ugh, he's not president-elect till tomorrow and already the lies start.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Really, it's complete Bullsh!t that Obama's against Prop 8. He doesn't support Gay Marriage, i.e., he supports Prop 8. Less talking out of both side of his mouth might make me less disposed to not vote for him Tuesday.

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I understand Obama thinks he can't get elected if he supports gay marriage. But coming out against Prop 8 IS supporting existing gay marriage rights. He can't have it both ways ... at least not with me. Ugh, he's not president-elect till tomorrow and already the lies start.

Sorry to drag this old line of discussion up, but I came across something yesterday that I think is interesting.

I'm reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, the first half of which is about the assassination of Lincoln. She discusses the speech that Frederick Douglas gave at the dedication of the Freeman's Memorial in Lincoln Park. Here are some key exerpts:

It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.

He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.

.......

When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory of Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country;

It was as honest a speech as there ever was. Lincoln took a long path to his role as champion of the end of slavery. Much as Obama now stops well short of actually supporting full equal rights for gays, Lincoln stopped well short of supporting freedom for slaves. And his eventual change of heart was more convenience than principle.

But:

Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave-system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress.

Obama is no Lincoln, and he's surely not achieved, under any guise, the gains for gays that Lincoln achieved for the slaves. But reading this speech, knowing that a great man can truly hold questionable views, play both sides, use those he's purportedly helping merely to serve his own ends, and yet in the end make the right decision, gives me hope that one day, given the opportunity, Obama can do the same.