Oh, Grow A Pair, Both of You!

So Ifill asks both Palin and Biden if they support gay rights and as expected Palin does her smiley-face bullshit tap dance, alluding to gay friends and family members (Really? Who exactly?) and making sure to say the word "tolerance" 60 times just to assure us all that she’s, ya know, a nice, reasonable person with no hard feelings towards the gays, honest. She and John McCain would never dream of standing in the way of some same-sex person with one of those contracts wanting to visit his or her hospitalized partner, or stuff like that.

When Ifill asks Palin if she supports gay marriage, however, Palin stands still and says no. She says, smiling sympathetically all the while, that she’s gonna be a straight shooter about this and come right on out and admit that her understanding of marriage is the traditional “one man and one woman” arrangement. So no, she (and John McCain) does not support gay marriage, no.

Well, no surprise there. And I give Governor Moose-shooter some credit—on the marriage issue, anyway—for not waffling around about it, for just saying what she really thinks about gays and marriage. No word of course on what those gay friends and family members of hers (Are you here? Are you sure you’re queer?) think about that.

But it’s Biden who depresses and disturbs me the most when, in one moment he makes firmly and unequivocally clear his and Barack Obama’s support of LGBT people having all of the same protections and rights as heterosexual people (Yaaaay!!!! Right on!!), and then in the next declaring he and Senator Obama absolutely do NOT support gay marriage, at all, period (Uh…what??).

Now, I can’t say that I’m shocked by the distinction Biden seemed to be making. Shocked, no; perplexed, yes, continually—gays are just like everyone else and civil unions are right and just but marriage is… out of bounds? (To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to! Get over it, already!) And it’s been suggested to me that, in a close election in a country as sexually backward, hypocritical and perennially ambivalent about gays as these United States, for Senators Obama and Biden to distance themselves from the gay marriage question is actually a politically smart (if craven) move. Once in office, I have been assured, surely both men—or the younger Obama at least—will come to recognize and eventually acknowledge not just the justice but the inevitability of LGBT people being allowed to legally marry—and not just in one or two states where the decision could be overturned.

Okay, maybe. But ya know, I grow so weary of these supposedly progressive politicians always counting on the LGBT community to help them win their elections even as they continually keep us at arms length on the most fundamental issues of our lives.

So memo to Senators Obama and Biden: Grow a pair and get on with it already!