Monday, April 13, 2009

applauding the wrong state

Maureen Dowd, as usual, with so much cleverness and so little insight. Remember what I said about some stupid arguments flying around after this kind of court decision? Let's get one thing straight: the decision by the Iowa Supreme Court on gay marriage does not mean that Iowans are more progressive than Californians. There are a lot of specious arguments being pushed about this issue, but this one's so obviously dumb that she needs to get called out for it.

And no, her point is not bolstered by the fact that Iowa chose Obama and California chose Hillary in the primary. There was no small amount of debate between many very liberal people on which candidate was more liberal (Paul Krugman, for instance, was absolutely sure it was Clinton), as if that was the primary reason most Democrats voted for their respective candidate, anyway.

The galling thing about this bandwagon to crown the Midwest as the new home of Enlightened America is that it draws attention away from the really big and lasting gain for gays that occurred in Vermont last week, where the state assembly became the first body in America to legislate gay marriage, and did so over the governor's veto, to boot. Vermont opens the door for other like-minded states to follow suit, and if gay marriage is going to gain a footing in any part of the country, it's going to be in socially liberal New England, not in the Midwest.

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