I've noticed a few folks saying that the President's new-found support for same-sex marriage is "political." Meaning, he did it for the election. For crass reason. Not because he simply likes us.
To that I say: So what?
My friend Adam Green has a nice synopsis of my feelings on this:
"Nothing's wrong with an elected leader responding to the will of the people and doing the right thing because it's an election year," said Adam Green, a founder of the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "If that gets us more civil rights and things like Wall Street accountability, fantastic. Democracy at work."There's a famous suffragette quote (or perhaps not so famous, as I'm failing to find it in Google) that goes something like this: "I don't want you to like me, I just want you to take your boot off my throat."
Point being: I dont care if politicians "like" us. I care what they "do." George Bush, the gay Republicans told us, really really really liked us in his heart, but he had to act anti-gay to please the right wing that controlled his party. Why should that give me solace? I'd much rather have a president in office who didn't like me but did all the right things than one who did like me and did all the wrong things.
I'm not trying to get people to like me. I'm trying to further the movement for gay civil rights. The former is only relevant when it aides the latter.
