San Diego Mayor Sanders Supports Gay Marriage

Mayor's speech

Read the article by Mark Morford at SF Gate titled The Republican Who Likes Gays: Behold, The Most Astonishing Speech You'll Hear All Year.

Read the whole article and watch the speech. Both are well worth your time.

Excerpt from SF Gate article:

"It was one of those surreal, suspended moments, an unexpected little hiccup in the otherwise bleak sociopolitical continuum where you couldn't help but pause and gasp and sit back and let your bitter cynicism and your hard-won ennui fall away and actually allow yourself, for now, just this once, to really and truly believe what you were seeing.

Could it really be happening? Was there really any way in hell a straight white male BushCo-era Republican would dare step up to a live microphone in front of a TV camera in a major American city and honestly admit that, well, he was wrong, and he is very sorry, and he has now officially reversed his position and now fully supports gay marriage and will actually sign a city council resolution acknowledging and advocating same?

And furthermore could this politician, during said cynicism-defying announcement, actually choke back tears -- real, human tears -- such a genuine display of emotion that you can't help but think it might actually be coupled to a living, breathing human soul?"

Morford asks us to to go Youtube and see this speech for ourselves. He says,

"Here's why you must: The speech contains that rarest of displays for an American politician, the thing we've all been convinced through years and decades simply no longer exists anywhere in the political biosphere, but especially among the famously heartless members of the famously homophobic GOP -- that is, astonishing honesty, humility, openness, heartfelt emotion in matters of love and human connection, sans rhetoric or spin or typical political bulls--t. The speech is, simply put, a deeply touching thing to watch."

This is the part of the article - and the Mayor's action - that gives me hope for the future:

"There is one more thing to ponder. Is it not curious that, on the rare instances such a personal breakthrough occurs in a public political figure, it's most often in the favor of a progressive idea, a humanistic switch away from cultural conservatism?.....Truly, Sanders seems to follow a wondrous, though not often noticed, law of humanistic expansion. It goes something like this: When you find your heart, when you look to your own family and your own life and your own soul for the answers and go beyond the limitations of your political handbook and disregard the bitter decrees force-fed to you by some dogmatic religion or belief system, well, chances are just incredibly good you will emerge a tiny bit more progressive or liberal or open-minded than before. Is that not fascinating?"

Indeed it is.


Sia

Update 9/27: Clergy Backing Same-sex Marriage


My thanks go out to Rowan Fairgrove, Librarian Bard, she of
Conjureworks,
Covenant of the Goddess,
Second Life
et al, and her LJ friends for the links and information.

Related articles:

Differently Oppressed Folks Need Protection, Too

2007 - The Year of the Homo? (Huffington Post)

Links:

Civil Union Vs Marriage:

From FactCheck.org: What Is a Civil Union?

Excerpt:

Politicians often say they support civil unions but not gay marriage. We sort out the difference.

Summary

When politicians say they support civil unions but not marriage for people of the same sex, what do they mean? We find three main differences between civil unions and marriage as it's traditionally viewed:

• The right to federal benefits. States that allow some type of same-sex union are able to grant only state rights. The Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 prohibits same-sex couples from receiving federal marriage rights and benefits.
• Portability. Because civil unions are not recognized by all states, such agreements are not always valid when couples cross state lines.
• Terminology. "Marriage" is a term that conveys societal and cultural meaning, important to both gay rights activists and those who don't believe gays should marry.