As usual, Frank Rich types too much and doesn't edit himself in today's NY Times column, The Bigots' Last Hurrah. Nonetheless, I recommend plugging through.
This is on the diminished status and possibilities for the anti-marriage equality types. As always with Rich, this blends his dour cynicism with optimistic conclusions. Perhaps I can borrow a bit of his view of sunbeams rising over the horizon.
While ripping the heavy-handed and blatantly dishonest National Organization for Marriage and its failed The Gathering Storm ad, he leaps ahead. "Yet easy to mock as 'Gathering Storm' may be, it nonetheless bookmarks a historic turning point in the demise of America’s anti-gay movement," he writes.
I often follow Rich's reasoning, but not to the end of his road. Here, he points to the numerous anti-gay and anti-SSM folk who have backpedaled after recent legalization in Iowa and Vermont. Fewer and fewer of the deceitful and melodramatic sorts keep up their irrational and emotional tirades. It seems more of the larger public just knows better. The anti-SSM wagon seems destined to drive off into some political swamp.
Frank figures that the ad is a touchstone. "If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead. " He points to such former anti-SSM leaders as Rick Warren and even Fox News as dropping objections to civil unions and even rubbing against SSM as the future. "As the case against equal rights for gay families gets harder and harder to argue on any nonreligious or legal grounds, no wonder so many conservatives are dropping the cause," he writes.
Moreover, he seems this unwelcome act being performed only by the extreme end of the Republicans, such as Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. These sure losers in a 2012 Republican race may just further plunge the hate wagon into the mire.
I am impatient — Vermont, Maine and New York this year, please! Rich sees marriage equality as "haltingly but inexorably" spreading. Here's hoping his analysis of the anti-equality movement is spot on.
Tags: massmarrier, Frank Rich, NY Times, same sex marriage, NOM, marriage equality
1 comment:
Thanks for the info massmarrier. FYI tere's a Wikipedia war going on right now over RIck Warren... his minions have been trying to prevent people from adding his anti-gay statements to the "Rick Warren" page. Have a look at: http://bonusroundblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/rick-warrens-employee-involved-in.html or if that URL is too long try this link: http://tinyurl.com/c43gaw.
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