Michael Barbaro explains how marriage equality passed in New York. First-rate reporting. The number of cases where the key fact turned out to be that someone had a gay relative is striking.
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Michael Barbaro explains how marriage equality passed in New York. First-rate reporting. The number of cases where the key fact turned out to be that someone had a gay relative is striking.
There are a lot of American movement conservative politicians who have one or two issues on which they take a liberal or even progressive position-usually support for research into a disease or a specific, targeted government assistance program. It’s almost always because they have a relative who is directly affected. (More broadly, the likelihood of a small-govenmenter carving out an exception to allow a role for government is pretty strongly correlated with the degree to which they would be directly affected by the lack of such a role.)
Matthew 5:46-47 (KJV)
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the [Re]publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the [Re]publicans so?”
There’s a Biblical prophecy for you. Take that, Nostradamus.
I don’t mean to rain on a gay parade…
But you know these culture war distractions cut both ways.
Liberals feel like they’ve won one finally…
And conservatives can point at the pictures of jostling joy and shout debauchery…
Meanwhile the republicans are holding Medicare hostage over the debt ceiling…
And my local paper still hasn’t told me anything about the history of the debt ceiling, and how often, if ever, it has been used as a legislative terrorist weapon.
Which is all to say…
What good is it if gays can marry in NY, but because of tomorrow’s cuts to Medicare they end up someday having to hock their home to pay for cancer treatments?
Anybody know what kind of happy parade we’ll have when that happens?
You didn’t blanch when you learned that donations from two billionaires drove this victory? It doesn’t give you pause when a coterie of unelected people with gigantic wallets legislate for the state of New York? The largesse went toward Good (gay marriage), but could easily have gone toward Bad. Use your imagination.