Letters to the Editor
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@ captainlarab
...the insistence by many gay activists on "full marriage equality now," which was primarily the agenda of blue-state activists, has largely resulted in red-state gays (who still lack basic protections against employment discrimination and hate crimes) being set back decades in their own struggle for equality. Now they have anti-marriage-equality amendments in their state constitutions that will take decades to repeal, and my partner and I worry every time we drive through Virginia to visit my parents that if something happened to one of us, the other wouldn't even have hospital visitation rights.
I have in the past been accused of being incredibly cynical, and no doubt will be again. That said, here goes: I have some lingering suspicions that the couple in MA who began the whole seeking-legitimation-of-marriage process some years back may have been put up to it in order to provoke reactionary Republican backlash.
I also watch and listen to the "all or nothing" purists, and see many people who, taking the stand they do, end up far more often with nothing, excepting possibly the dubious salve for their feelings that they "lost pure" and thus fought the good fight.
They are wrong.
In the political arena, where compromise is the name by which we know the idea of accomplishment, it's always best to take half a loaf. Why? (This part is for the "innocent"...) Every step forward from that point goes on from the incremental gains being consolidated.
The Republicans did not accomplish their dismantling of the Constitutional mechanisms of government overnight. No one, not even Bush, walked into Washington and threw the "Republican" switch, changing everything at a stroke. This happened over decades, by the work of dedicated minions, who spend their long days and nights looking for ways to turn the institutional protections back on themselves and exploit the resulting cracks. Neither will it be changed overnight.
...I suppose there's "something" to be said for the NOW/purist approach, but it ain't pragmatism. It's the anthem of people who feel it's more important to stick to their principles than to actually get anything done.
Rarely if ever more clearly expressed. Make it better than it was yesterday. Come back tomorrow and do it again. Thus is a future transformed.
At bottom, NOW is getting down there in the mud with the Clinton campaign. America, all of America, deserves better.