The Nation's Heart of Darkness

This has been a bizarre week in Washington.

The President of the United States has decided to make a big deal out of the sexual orientation thing. He knows that ... a certain kind of person ... will get fired up over the idea that some people are going to be gay, and he's hoping he can stir them up, like he was able to do last time, so they'll go out and vote for Republicans in the midterm elections.

This time it's a little different. The religious right is well aware that the White House has not delivered on any of its promises to them from the last two Presidential elections. They are complaining and trying to put pressure on, but, face it, this "marriage amendment" thing is not important to anybody, really. Everybody knows it can't pass in Congress, and nobody really cares if it does. Yesterday's press conference was a kind of embarrassing charade.

Look what's important to people.

Daily Kos has posted the results of a recent Gallup poll:

What one or two issues should be top priorities for 
the president and Congress to deal with at this time?

                                      May  April

Situation in Iraq/war                  42     29
Fuel/oil prices/lack of energy sources/
the energy crisis                      29     13
Immigration/illegal aliens             23     20
Economy in general                     14     14
Poor health care/hospitals; high cost    
of health care                         12      9
Terrorism                               4      3
Education/poor education/access   
to education                            4      4
Federal budget deficit/federal debt     3      3
Unemployment/jobs                       3      3
Taxes                                   3      2
Social Security                         2      2
International issues/problems           2      2
National security                       2      5
Environment/pollution                   2      1
Medicare                                2      2
Foreign aid/focus overseas              2      2
Poor leadership/corruption/dissatisfaction
with government/Congress/politicians/
candidates                              2      1
Poverty/hunger/homelessness             1      1
Ethics/moral/religious/family decline;
dishonesty; lack of integrity           1      1
Natural disaster relief/funding         1      -
Trade deficit/foreign trade             1      -
High cost of living/inflation           1      1
Unifying the country                    -      1
Judicial system/courts/laws             -      1
Abortion                                -      1
Lack of money                           -      1
Gap between rich and poor               -      1

Other                                   1      2
No opinion                              4      3

Do you see "gay marriage" on that list? It's possible that that's what some of the one percent of the people meant when they answered "Ethics/moral/religious/family decline; dishonesty; lack of integrity," but I'm sure that category is bigger than just "gay marriage."

In fact, nobody really thinks it is a big national problem if some gay guys marry each other.

Yesterday's press conference at the White House was going to be in the Rose Garden, a big deal in other words, but he moved it to a less prominent location. Though leaders of the religious right were there, television crews were very careful never to show any of them on TV. The President walked off after delivering his message, and took no questions. It's like, we have to do this to placate the nuts, but can we get it over with, please?

Exodus International, a religious group that tries to get gay people to change, issued a press release, bragging that they were invited to the White House for this. They quote Exodus president Alan Chambers saying:

"Ultimately, this debate is about nothing less than the preservation of future generations." Exodus press release

Really? Does it seem likely to you that, if you allowed men to marry men and women to marry women, all men would marry men, and all women would marry women?

Am I missing something?

If we allow gay marriage, "future generations" will simply ... not be born? People will fail to procreate? Wouldn't that be weird, if people only had straight sex because the law required it?

I, personally, would really be kind of surprised to learn of that.

There are times that you look around America and think, man, this is one crazy place! We have all kinds of people here, isn't this cool? But then you look at this, a ceremonial event at the White House, the center of executive power for the whole country, the focal point of our national leadership, and you see these clowns running around, you see this ugliness in the heart of our nation.

And you ask yourself, what has happened here?