This is a wonderful day, a memorable day, for my gay son, Tobias Barrington Wolff, who has done so much to advance the cause of LGBT equality, in the courts and in the public discourse of this country. My eyes filled with tears of joy for him today. I am an old man and there are not too many such days left for me. Let the politics of this wait until tomorrow. I will dance at his wedding.
It is now tomorrow, professor, so I will get started on the politics.
ReplyDeleteMany think that this will hurt Obama in a lot of swing states, but it seems to me instead that it was a rather brilliant political move, whose purpose was to force Romney to talk about gay marriage for the next 3 or 4 months, keeping him away from the economy.
Of course, I did not mean to say that Obama's endorsement of gay marriage was just political. I have no doubt that he spoke sincerely and without being driven by a political agenda. But the political repercussions are far from straightforward and this may in fact end up helping his re-election chances, not just by winning him the support of the gay community, but also by changing the topic away from the sorry state of the economy.
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't that all that really matters? The next electoral contest?
ReplyDeleteDeceptive Whispers.