esrosedotblog

FORMICA

In today's NYTimes, Frank Rich compares the gay marriage rights movement (moving very very fast) to blacks sitting at formica lunch counters; both put an undeniably human face to their issue: The Joy of Gay Marriage.

It is a very upbeat piece making the point that happy faces often trump the prophets of fear and loathing. There is the backlash quotient of course. We await.

The insensitivity of politicians in the face of all this is sadly understandable. Don't rile the base. Kerry says he was not aware of what was going on out there in San Francisco. Really. I was about to vote for him in the primary and quit Dean entirely. So much for that. I will vote to send a delegate who will represent ME to Boston.

These are most interesting times.

"The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which 'the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one's skin or color or race' are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs." - Hannah Arendt, Dissent, Winter 1959.