As we watch folks fall in line with Marriage Equality...
Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2013, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)
We appear to be at a point where marriage equality will move to the center and become one of those positions that is slightly more controversial to oppose than support.
Some will oppose it, of course, but opposition will not be the safe, default position.
Now recall how Radioactive marriage equality was. Recall the presidential election of 1984, for instance. Kerry didn't even support gay marriage, but he didn't condemn it enough or something. Recall that even in 2008 it was a no-brainer that a Democratic presidential candidate could not be for it.
And now look at the things that are MORE controversial than marriage equality. Things the political center cannot touch. Core American values that have remained rock-solid universals even as marriage equality was moving with all this momentum.
If somebody had said in 1985 that the USA would have gay marriage before it had a unexceptional national health system like that of every other first world country they would have seemed odd... but as things play out, they probably would have been right.
Here is a true core value: Any somehow below average American person (49% of any group is below average) should work dusk to dawn without making enough money to have a modest decent American life. The default position in American life should be poverty.
While we have evolved explosively on marriage we have not gained, and even lost ground on wages, so it appears that better wages was actually more controversial than gay marriage! Marriage is between one man and one woman? Pah... heterosexual marriage is a mere fad compared to working poverty and involuntary unemployment. Those are our untouchable values.
A Democratic president had to wait until his second term to propose raising a non-living wage to a slightly higher non-living wage, knowing that even that meager proposal is DOA.
Hell... the Assault Weapons Ban is more controversial than gay marriage.
The merest bank regulation is more controversial than gay marriage.
Leaving entitlement benefits where they are is more controversial than gay marriage.
We may see not bombing Iran become more controversial than gay marriage.
Single payer? Definitely more controversial than gay marriage.
Opposition to marriage equality is something the autarchs use to divide and conquer. It is a mere tool, to be discarded when it is no longer useful as a tool.
And the winning argument will ultimately have been, "Come to think of it... marriage equality will not fundamentally change America."
It will not decrease profits. It will not cause workers to rise up.
The point here is not that marriage equality is not a big deal. It is a very big deal in terms of formal social equity. It is a very big moral deal. But it is not a threat to any stacks of money, and thus not an existential threat to TPTB.
In his heart of hearts, even Rick Santorum knows that a $15.00 minimum wage would be a deeper blow to contemporary American conservative values, and a greater driver of future social change, than marriage equality.
The core conservative value, and American value, frankly, is economic inequality.
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