A Stitch in Haste

Good op-ed today by Frank Rich in the New York Times, regarding the history of gays and the Republican Party. Here's the part I found most interesting:

Today's judge-bashing firebrands often say that it isn't homosexuality per se that riles them, only the potential legalization of same-sex marriage by the courts. That's a sham. These people have been attacking gay people since well before Massachusetts judges took up the issue of marriage, Vermont legalized civil unions or Gavin Newsom was in grade school. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a "Declaration of War" against homosexuality. A quarter-century later these views remained so unreconstructed that Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson would go so far as to pin the 9/11 attacks in part on gay men and lesbians - a charge they later withdrew but that Mr. Robertson repositioned just two weeks ago. In response to a question from George Stephanopoulos, he said he now believes that activist judges are a more serious threat than Al Qaeda.

Exactly. Maybe you have to be over 30 to understand this, but the "too much too soon" crowd simply cannot seem to grasp the concept of "if not now, then when?" Somewhere, somewhen, there had to be a beginning. It happened to be Vermont and Massachusetts (or Hawaii, if you prefer) and it happened to be now. And whether the beginnings of same-sex partnership recognition had occurred today, ten years ago or ten years from now, there would still have been a "backlash." There has been a "backlash" forever, or at least since Anita Bryant. Waiting for no other reason than the fear of a "backlash" would have accomplished nothing. (And as for waiting for a Democratic president or Congress, we tried that once, and got federal DOMA and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" as a reward for our patience. Never again.)

Gay marriage existed in no "backlash state" before Vermont and Massachusetts. It would not have existed anytime soon had there not been Vermont and Massachusetts, with or without "backlash legislation." How is it a "loss" or a "mistake" to call their hands and "out them" with respect to their animosity toward gays?

Some argue that we have to win "hearts and minds" first. Well, you can't win hearts and minds arguing from a closet, or from a dinner table. You win them from news headlines and op-ed pages and Sunday talk shows (and now from blogs). Before there can be a debate, there has to be an issue that initiates the debate.

And as for "legislation rather than litigation" — that presupposes that we have a choice. If gays are left with no other option than to sue for their equal rights, then no one has a right to be surprised when that's exactly what they do. If anti-gay factions oppose gay rights lawsuits, then perhaps they shouldn't be paving a one-way street straight to the courthouse door. Stated differently, be careful what anti-gay laws you wish for — you might get them, complete with lawsuits challenging them.

No other disadvantaged group has ever been told to "just wait a few generations." Not women, not Jews, not blacks, not the handicapped. The moment they had the opportunity, they started fighting. And, for the most part, they all won.

Why should we be different?

Other thoughts on the Frank Rich piece from BlogActive.

UPDATE: WILLisms has a comprehensive post chock full of data, both relevant and irrelevant, about polling data regarding same-sex marriage. Read his post, then re-read my post, then draw your own conclusions (but be sure to see my comment at his post too).