The Democratic left may be bending their policies to the conservative right, but here’s one issue that the right can’t get right: changing attitudes over gay marriage.
It’s not a new phenomenon, the GOP has been denying atraditional matrimony, the 14th Amendment, the 21st century and basic human rights for years. But recently, Republican senator Rob Portman shifted in support of gay marriage after his son officially came out. Moreover, swing-state Ohio revealed polls shifting public support in favor of same sex marriage, up to 54 percent. Naturally, Republicans quickly began patching the hull in a ship already sank: they were happy for Portman, they even respected his individual choice to change positions. Why they treat that any different from the concept of same-sex marriage, I’ll never know. But despite the superficial support of his party comrades, no one else would budge on the position. Even as they’re losing votes.
New Gingrich, for example, believes heterosexual marriage will never change “no matter what politicians decide.” Yet, based on the principles of representative democracy that Gingrich just so happens to participate in, he’s responsible to the people. And as society changes its views, so too do laws. This is why Gingrich is unable to own other humans as slaves, regardless of his desires to use slave labor on his moon colony. Culture changes, tradition is fickle. And herein lies the fundamental misunderstanding within the GOP.
Ultimately, government needn’t be making these decisions at all. Religious unions and same-sex marriage could receive the same legal benefits without federal law constructing protectionist definitions. If we allow gay individuals the opportunity to seek their own equally identified unions while saving religious institutions from administering them, the government’s blessings will be cut out completely, pseudo religious precedent finally broken. After all, the limitations of marriage are only socially constructed — it takes a nation of narrow-minded millions to hold us back.
