Right, but diversity’s always been circumscribed to exclude extremist elements. There won’t be any Klan representation at the inaugural in the interests of “outreach,” for instance, nor should there be. The whole point of the left’s hysterically outsized outrage here is to compress the diversity circle so that Prop 8 supporters fall outside the circumference as “extreme” and unfit for civic participation. Framing this issue in those terms is a pretty stark way for The One to say he won’t go along, which means he’s mainstreaming them by implication. I wonder why. Is it because it’s just too politically risky to dump one of the world’s most influential Christians, or is he worried that if supporting Prop 8 qualifies as “extreme,” opposing gay marriage in principle — as he himself does, at least nominally — will be next? Cynical blogger says: The former, of course.
Jim Geraghty, feeling the spirit of the season, pities the fools. Exit question: If Obama believes gay marriage should be left to the states but doesn’t support the practice himself, why’d he oppose Prop 8? I had a long chat about this recently with an evangelical friend who distinguished her duty to oppose same-sex unions in Christian contexts (i.e. no church weddings for gays) from the state’s right to legislate how it sees fit, in an evenhanded manner. Ultimately, she explained, laws in a civil society have to be justifiable on non-religious grounds — a point The One himself has famously made in the past — and while it’s easy to do that for, say, anti-abortion laws, it’s not so easy for laws banning marriage between gays. Which was her way of hinting that the divine injunction against homosexuality and gay unions is inscrutable in a way that other moral commandments aren’t. Does Obama agree? My withered atheist heart longs to know which core values the Messiah thinks are dumb but holds anyway purely on the Lord’s ipse dixit. Click the image to watch.
