One of the honorary-degree recipients at yesterday's 311th commencement at Yale University was a state Supreme Court judge from Massachusetts who was being honored for her strident defense and advocacy of same-sex marriage.
When that part of the citation was read, the audience burst into enthusiastic screaming and applauding. University President Rick Levin became quite emotional.
On the issue of same-sex marriage, reasonable people can agree that any two consenting adults can have relationships in which they can live together, sleep together, eat and do whatever they wish together; this is a free society in which free will is granted to us by our creator.
However, by simply doing these things, they do not get to redefine a foundational institution like marriage. If we begin to redefine the very pillars of our society based on political expediency, there soon won’t be anything left to redefine. We must return principles and values to our society that include being kind and respectful to everyone while not changing who we are.
The manner in which those who would be president view the basic civil liberties and rights of all Americans regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation says all that we need to know about the moral character of those who would be president of the greatest nation on earth. In asserting his belief that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, President Obama demonstrated that he is a man on the side of all Americans, not just those who are “straight.”
One of the marks of true leadership is the ability and willingness to stand up for the rights of others in the face of opposition and regardless of the political consequences one may face.
In many ways, President Obama’s new position on the whole issue of gay marriage is completely irrelevant. This has largely been a state issue, and while the Justice Department decided not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, the president’s signature or veto is not pending on any piece of legislation produced by the Congress.
But that is not how the media played it. For them, this issue is far bigger than Social Security reform, Medicare reform, the debt limit, the largest tax increase in history (which is just around the corner) and the shocking lack of leadership from this president on a host of other issues.
The same-sex marriage issue and Obama's inability to have a consistent viewpoint illustrates that he is nothing more than a politician whose views fluctuate with the wind. It is obvious that this is all about politics, Vice President Biden included.
There was a vote in North Carolina that the president was hoping to affect, and failed miserably. His left-wing base are clamoring for his approval on gay marriage before they will fully commit to him. Therefore, principles have gone out of the window and politics has taken the driver’s seat.
If I recall correctly, last year when New York Gov. Mario Cuomo celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in New York, the same week, President Obama’s support in North Carolina dropped 14 percent. Two things: As Rick Perry said about Mitt Romney, how can you change your mind as a grown-up man about things so essential to life? It is not a change of mind; it is a change of feelings. Which may be worse. By what mechanism? Do we just change who we are, simple to conform to the floating standards? It is the curse of a very large country run purely on bright lights and sensory apparatus — TV, movies, movie stars and pounding music at every turn — constantly bombarding, and leaving in the end, so little to remain between the generations; so little to remain at all. Last year Obama opposed gay marriage. Last week he was “evolving.” (Wow.) Now he has evolved. There was, at the beginning, little to this man. Now there is less.
Let’s be clear: There is no war on women. And it’s time to tone down the rhetoric.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans are actually attacking women. Calls for government-run, cradle-to-grave policies — from either the right or the left — are bad for women and their families; but they’re a far cry from an assault on women.
Ted Nugent’s (most recent) inflammatory comments, in which he referred to Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nancy Pelosi as “varmints,” ought to be condemned — and forcefully. This kind of rhetoric — whether it’s from Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann or Rush Limbaugh — is not only repulsive, but also distracting.
The Romney campaign fell off its game yesterday when a reporter asked the governor about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. Unprepared, the campaign spokesmen said, “We’ll get back to you on that.” Later, another spokeswoman added that Gov. Romney supports pay equity, but left out what he thinks about Lilly Ledbetter.
With the “War on Women” theme crescendoing, the Romney campaign can’t afford to have a slip-up like this again, so let me offer some advice on how to answer this question in the future:
In my latest column, Supreme Court on trial, I initiated a new discussion about how five conservative men on the Supreme Court have joined partisan Republicans in the war against laws and programs that serve women. In June we will remember the anniversary of the infamous 5-4 Supreme Court decision discrimination defeating women opposing against Wal-mart, when the five men joined fellow Republicans against efforts to win pay equity for women and end discrimination against women. It will not help Republicans to put South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is highly unpopular at home, on the presidential ticket with “war against women” politicians such as Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Ron Paul.
In my mind, what is most important about the contest in Illinois — and which most certainly will affect the general election — is that not one of the Republican contenders for president uttered a word about the apparently racially motivated murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., last month.
On Feb. 26, a man described by police as “white” shot and killed Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African-American. A Neighborhood Watch volunteer, it has been reported that the shooter’s parents have said their son is Hispanic. Other reports state that the shooter’s father is white and his mother Hispanic.
Regardless of how one chooses to describe the shooter, the fact is that Hispanic is not a race, it is an ethnicity. Hispanics self-identify as white, black and even Asian. The shooter's parents have not said that he was either black or Asian.
By all accounts, Martin, the victim of this crime, was walking in a gated community after purchasing a bag of Skittles and can of iced tea at a nearby 7-Eleven. Protests have erupted over the failure of the police to arrest the killer, George Zimmerman, even though he has confessed to killing Martin and there was no apparent justification for the shooting. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would investigate the killing.
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