gay rights versus abortion

There's been a lot of talk about "moral issues" in this election, which turned out Bush's base and ultimately won the election for the GOP. There are two "moral issues" that really mattered... abortion, and "gay marriage". I think these are fundamentally different issues, and need to be treated as such.

Abortion is a true moral issue. The question of when life begins, and when and why it is okay to end it, is extremely difficult, pitting the rights of one person against the rights of another. And in practice, this issue will never go away, and reasonable people will disagree on it. We need to be a big tent here.

Gay marriage and gay rights in general is not a moral issue. It is a cultural issue, dressed up as a moral issue for political gain. It is fundamentally no different from racism, and the fight for equal rights is fundamentally no different from the civil rights movement.

Fifty years ago, the language of evangelical Christianity was used to justify Jim Crow. Black people were considered morally inferior because the Bible said so - but that was just a mask for the truth, which was purely cultural bias. Eventually, true morality won and equal rights under the law were finally a reality. Even today, many white people are uncomfortable around blacks, and harbor racist thoughts. But they know those thoughts are wrong, and feel guilty and ashamed. Open displays of racism are unacceptable by even the most right-wing politicians.

We can do the same thing with gay rights.  We may never be able to defeat the "ick factor", but we can defeat legal discrimination and break the made-up connection between homophobia and Christianity.

This is particularly important with the religious black community.  If we can frame the gay rights issue as a modern version of the civil rights issue, we can keep them on board. Right now, we're at a very dangerous point. The GOP is using homosexuality as a wedge issue to peel black voters away from the Democrats. Their Southern Strategy language is changing from crypto-racism to homophobia, and poor fundamentalist black voters are no more likely to vote their wallets over their religion than poor fundamentalist white voters. If the GOP succeeds, we cripple or even lose one of the most reliable and effective Democratic voting blocs.

Keep an eye on the end. In a couple of decades, we need tolerance for gays to be as ingrained as tolerance for blacks. That means losing the "separate but equal" language of civil unions, and standing on this as a MORAL issue. OUR moral issue, not theirs.