A SLIPPERY WEDGE


My gut instinct tells me is that Bush's decision to endorse the FMA is a political blunder. This country is moving steadily and inexorably towards acceptance of gay rights. Leading up to Lawrence , the issue if anything was breaking for the Dems. The Mass Supreme Court ruling however shifted the issue to gay marriage, where most of the country simply isn't ready yet - and once more the GOP stood to benefit from cultural wedge issue. The FMA, however, is sufficiently radical that it erases that edge, and Bush's decision to endorse the FMA now makes it the centerpiece of the debate over gay marriage. Now, rather than have to defend gay marriage, the Dems can simply promote civil unions and stake out the procedural high-ground of protecting the Constitution from those who want to sully it with partisan politics. And in the end, I predict, the FMA project will only speed the nation on towards full equality for gay Americans.

UPDATE


Had I checked, I would have found that pundits across the liberal spectrum from TNR's Noam Schreiber to the Tapped's Nick Confessore have pretty much have a similar take on the issue. Oh well, there's goes the originality angle.