Voila! As if anyone did not already know, President Obama supports marriage equality. There is nothing surprising about a relatively young, brilliant progressive who holds such a basic moral view. And it is fitting that the first African-American president would also be the first to openly condemn marriage apartheid. But sadly, as is so often the case in this nation, this positive step forward--and it is an important one--is overshadowed by the realities it reveals.
First, the president's announcement reminds us just how dishonest our political system is. Obama would have us believe that his views on marriage equality have "evolved." Yes, a brilliant constitutional law scholar with a deeply personal connection to the scarred legacy of "separate but equal" is trying to convince us that he only recently had an epiphany: "separate but equal" is wrong. Sure. If you believe that, I have a timeshare in Key West for you. It is pretty obvious that the president has always held this view, and was just afraid to come out and say so.
Some may say: well, that's just politics. To those voices I reply: no, that's cowardice. It is true that in the current state of affairs one must transform into a Bible-thumping, flag-lapel wearing, military cheer-leading buffoon to get elected. But those who are willing to make such a transformation to secure a grip on the throat of power are neither entitled to, nor deserving of, respect. Morally serious people object to such camouflage of conviction; so should the president. After all, if no one was willing to wear a disguise to get elected, there might be honesty in politics. Rather than vie for this--albeit lofty--objective, we content ourselves with lauding the president for revealing to us that, during his campaign and for four years after, he persistently lied about his views on a fundamental issue as a measure of political expediency. And why? Because he announced that he supports basic human rights? It seems striking that such applause should greet such a substantively trivial thing as expression of support for human dignity. But I suppose that any support for basic human rights is a triumph in an administration which has previously assassinated an American citizen, and which occupies two countries with zero moral or legal justification.
And that leads me to number two. The second reason the president's announcement is not a cause for celebration: it reminds us just how backwards we are as a society. That fifty percent of the country is opposed, without a semblance of a rational reason for so being, to the right of people to participate in the most sacred of all social traditions is astonishing. This same half of the nation will, out of one side of its collective mouth, support the invasion of a country no matter how fatuous the justification, even when it leads to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of that country's indigenous people--casualties which, unbelievably, go unmentioned in the mainstream press, which typically prefers to note only American casualties. But gays can't get married. That's unspeakable. We have to protect the "definition of marriage." Whatever that means. I wonder if the original definition of marriage--the creation of a property right in a woman's body for the use of the property-owner husband--is worthy of protection too? And while we are protecting definitions, let us address "morality." The definition of that term is certainly under attack.
So, yes. It is a historic day. And Barack Obama deserves credit for having basic moral courage--but not much. If we are willing to heap praise merely for acting in alignment with basic moral truisms, only one conclusion can follow: we truly are morally bankrupt.
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