My Economics Hero, Paul Krugman doesn't understand what turned the public around so fast for gay marriage. I posted this comment on his blog on the subject because I think this is why:
There hasn't been any transformation, really.
There was the status quo....
Then there was a challenge to the status quo....
Discussion of the status quo and the challenge took place....
End of story. People just needed to have the discussion forced into their consciousness to realize the pettiness of the status quo.
25 years ago no one dared admit to being gay, but now it's commonplace. People used to only know gay people from pictures of flamboyant parades, but now pretty much everyone has met someone who is gay and most realize that they are just as human as anyone else.
This is what enrages me about how Obama and Dem "leaders" deal with issues social and economic. Obama, recall, was against gay marriage during his original campaign in 2008 because that was the convenient position. If you want to change our direction, you can do so with strong leadership that forces people to confront and discuss the critical issues in an open debate.
But no Dems beyond Warren, Sanders (ok, technically not a Dem), Grayson, and a few others have the courage to do so. We get a push for austerity when we desperately need stimulus. We get toothless financial regulations. We get no mortgage reform after continuous egregious abuses.
"We have to be REASONABLE - we can't achieve these things..." is the standard defense of this abject cowardice.
Well, DOMA's demise and the public polls are Exhibit A proving the fact that you can get something when you push for it in a positive way with a grounding in real human experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment