Support for gay marriage: 58 percent

Oh hell no!
HUGE gulf between this kind of support and actual voters.

 

Antonin Scalia has had a brilliant, sometimes controversial career as a conservative firebrand on the Supreme Court. I like him.

But I fear that, if the vote is 5-4 this summer with Anthony Kennedy joining the liberal caucus, the out-of-touch dissent he is sure to issue may end up being his legacy.

 

No, because young people don't vote at a high rate.

 

It makes sense, but the Franklin analogy only works if Franklin was actively preventing other people's children from getting a vaccination.

 

I think if you put it on the ballot nationally, it would probably lose by a relatively narrow margin.

The over 70 crowd would all line up to vote against it.

What I find most interesting about this issue is that it's less of a party issue than it is an age and race issue.

I think in 20 years when the Baby Boomers have died off, you could put this on the ballot and it would fly through. Hopefully, we won't have to wait that long.

 

Two things about the question of 'hypocrisy' and how people come to hold their 'convictions' and 'principles.'

- It's interesting (to me at least) as a purely philosophical matter how people arrive at new 'beliefs.'

- But as a practical political matter one has the right to ask any 'convert' how lightly held his new 'beliefs' might be, since the old 'beliefs' were abandoned as soon as they became personally inconvenient.

 

Usually, it's Mizzou who's decided I'm required to oppose gay rights because I'm a boomer.

 

To me, phrasing it this way is a severe trivialization of what the experience of having a gay son has done for Rob Portman.

I care deeply about this movement, but this particular news story has served to illuminate a smugness among my fellow proponents that I don't really love.

 

Slippery slope to purity tests there.

 

Nothing smug about it.

He was an active opponent of gay rights until his son came out.

Glad to have his vote going forward - if in fact gay rights does have his vote, not just his "neutrality" - but let's not pretend he wasn't actively legislating against the rights of other people's gay children for years.

 

I think it's a fair question that never gets much of an answer except in someone's actions after the declaration of conversion.

I await the proof in Mr. Portman's behavior going forward.