The Great Gay Marriage Distraction

Sorry to be the golden shower on the rainbow parade, but Obama’s stance in favor of gay marriage is nothing more than election year politics at its most cynical.

Supporters praising Obama’s “courage” and this “historic moment” are being hopeful and naïve. The White House knew the North Carolina referendum was coming and that it would probably win and timed the announcement accordingly.

Obama knows there is little he can do for them, but he wants gay activists’ campaign cash and he wants to rally them to his campaign after angering them with years of inaction.

Obama was against gay marriage in 2008. Then he said his position was “evolving,” which meant he was going to change it as soon as it was politically feasible. In making this announcement, Obama pays lip service to the gay rights groups and gets activist supporters more interested in his campaign.

But while gay rights advocates will be motivated to come to the polls in November for a President who is now conveniently waving the rainbow flag, religious fundamentalists won’t be as motivated – their candidate supported gay rights until he started running for president.

The solution is to have no government stance on marriage at all. Marriage is a private agreement between two people. Let two people who want to be married get their marriage/civil union agreement notarized and then file it with their local county clerk. Gays will call it marriage and religious people will disagree, but who cares? The government has absolutely NO business in the personal relationships of its citizens.

I think even most of the religious activists agree that all consenting adults should be able to live their lives as they choose and determine who will be their family beneficiaries and next of kin. They get hung up on having the government calling gay unions marriages. But if things were running right, the government wouldn’t be involved in marriages/civil unions at all.

We still have our armed forces fighting in the Middle East, ruinous amounts of debt piling up, crumbling infrastructure and increasing crime. Let’s stop using this wedge issue for short-term electoral gain, let all adults form whatever relationships they choose, and move to solve some other issues.