Marriage Equality Goes Prime Time

For LGBT Americans the contrast between the GOP convention and platform and those of the Democrats cannot be more stark.  The Republican view of the future has LGBT citizens remaining stigmatized, our relationships threatened by a GOP federal marriage amendment and we remain subject to firing from our jobs at will for who we are, and we remain denied the 1000 benefits awarded to heterosexual couples via the word "marriage."  In the Democrat view of the future, we have full equality and employment non-discrimination protections.  Indeed, the GOP offers a nightmarish alternate universe for LGBT Americans compared to the Democrats.  Yet amazingly, I continue to see on Facebook and elsewhere LGBT individuals who say they "like" Mittt Romney and/or Paul Ryan.  How can you like someone who wants to forever keep you inferior and subject to discrimination.  I simply don't understand the mindset.  Or are these folks just stunningly uninformed?  A column in the New York Times looks at how the Democrats have taken the support for equality prime time if you will.  Here are excerpts:

In light of my Sunday column on how thoroughly prime-time speakers at the Republican National Convention ignored the issue of same-sex marriage, I thought I should note the repeated mentions of it on the first night of the Democratic National Convention here in Charlotte.

I thought I should also note something else that occurred to me this morning, as I revisited speakers’ comments on the matter. Although the Democratic Party’s platform for the first time this year has a plank advocating marriage equality, three prominent speakers who nodded to that – Michelle Obama; Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio; and Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts – did so in glancing fashions.

And with a consistency that can’t have been accidental, all three sidestepped the words “gay” or “lesbian” or the initials LGBT, unless my electronic search of the transcripts of their remarks is in error.
It was an intriguing suggestion that while Democrats are increasingly lining up in support of marriage equality, which has been championed over the last two years by the Democratic governors of the states of New York, Washington and Maryland, they still believe it must be framed in careful ways, with careful language. They’re perhaps still concerned that they not come across as too fixated on this issue or too beholden to identity politics or, well, too liberal.

The trend the author noted continued last night  suggesting that even our supporters at times see us as still semi-radioactive.  But the Democrat approach is still far preferable to that of the Republicans who allowed portions of their party platform to be written by the likes of hate group leader Tony Perkins (who also has an affection for white supremacists).  The column author summed it it up thus:

I was trying to make an observation that I stand by: the issue of same-sex marriage remains sensitive enough, and some voters’ comfort with the rising visibility and acceptance of LGBT Americans remains shaky enough, that even supportive politicians often enter this area with some degree of caution, making precise decisions about diction. And I think that’s part of what you saw and heard on the convention stage in Charlotte last night.

My primary response to the brief references to same-sex marriage was gratitude. My secondary response was excitement. A fascination with the details and flavor of those references was maybe my tertiary response. And my post about it was meant to be an analysis, not a complaint.

I too feel gratitude and hope that LGBT youth around the country take note that the Democrats (i) take note of their existence in a positive way and (ii) support their happiness and the worth of their lives.  Would that the Christofascist controlled GOP would do likewise.