Let the Red Herrings Abound

First off, I do not think its a vast right-wing conspiracy that state supreme courts keep ruling in favor of gay marriage during election years. They're not nearly organized or principled enough to pull that off. However, I'm anticipating a blitz of media coverage on the recent California Supreme Court decision that not allowing gays equal rights to marry is unconstitutional (at least under California's Constitution). Here's the story I read. Of course its a sign of things to come when you google "massachusetts gay marriage decision" and the first 10 pages of hits are different articles about the California decision.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for gay marriage. I applaud the California Supreme Court decision and, although I haven't actually read the text of the decision yet, their reasoning, as portrayed in the Washington Post was sound.

What bothers me about this decision is simply the timing. Here's what's going to happen: for the next couple of days the networks will be milking this story for all its worth in their traditional manner. Then something will happen. They will realize that there's a presidential election going on and that the candidates haven't spoken out on their positions on the issue in a while. John McCain will be asked and he'll say he's against it. Barack Obama will be asked and he'll say something to the effect that he supports it while trying not to irritate those of his supporters who might abandon ship if he comes out strongly for gay marriage rights. Hillary Clinton will say something similar to Obama and nobody will pay her any attention as the election train passes her by. But then the media will begin to harp on it. And they'll drive it into the ground, parsing every single word out of the candidates mouths, figuring out what blue collar white voters think about it, what black voters think about it, what moderates think about it, what Chris Matthews thinks those people think about it. We are going to be hearing about this through November, mark my words.

So, to do my part, absent some actual newsworthy story apart from today's headline, you won't hear anything else about it here. My take: good decision on the part of the California Supreme Court, I think they nailed the equal protection argument that's convinced me for quite sometime. Not sure how they got around the fact that, to my knowledge, homosexuals aren't a suspect class, at least according to the US Supremes, but I think the argument is there to make them one.

So there you have it. I'm not talking about this anymore.