Gay Marriage

I tend to disagree with most things Lou Dobbs says - he can really be a pompous windbag - but at least the main idea of this cnn article gets it right, even if he never even mentions that the idea itself is just a bad one. I mean, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is horrible in even the best of times - it doesn't take other, more "important" issues to make it wrong. It just is. Period. The mere idea of writing fear- and ignorance-based discrimination into our Constitution is insulting to the ideals and individuals that have driven progress over the last two hundred thirty years, and changed our country from a slave-holding colony run by rich male landowners, to a nominally equality-based democracy with the power to change the world. I, for one, am against letting elected officials use that power to undo over two hundred years of social and idealogical progress for their own archaic, personal belief - be it in morality dictated by a higher power or the innate right of those with power to impose their will on the world.

To give credit to Dobbs, though, the main idea of his article is that any wedge issue, gay marriage in this case, is just insulting to the american public when there's so much more going on that might actually be resolved. Wedge issues, even important ones like this, are basically only ever used as tools of political maneuvering. I mean, no one expects this to get the 2/3 vote. No one. Forget that it's a bad idea to begin with, it's just a huge waste of time.