I Can't Believe This Makes Me a "Liberal"

Silly me.

I want to vote for the Presidential candidate who will best protect our national security, articulate and support sound fiscal policy, improve America's crumbling physical infrastructure, balance economic growth with environmental protection, and promote prosperity and equal opportunity for all Americans.

I don't know where I get such dumb ideas.

Instead I'm watching incredulously as the 2012 election inexorably boils down to the right of all Americans to have sex in whichever orifice they deem suitable.

For the record: This is not the issue upon which I want to base my vote.

Quick: Do you want to have sex with her,
go shopping with her, or ask her where she got
the patterns to make the stuffed animals?
I don't care.

I worry about whether America can sustain a thriving economy without a manufacturing base. I wonder if government investment in alternative energy sources is hampering efficient private-sector development of the technology. I debate the current and future role of the United States as an international peacekeeper. I search for signs that government can do more with less and Congress can commit to fewer earmarks and wasteful programs. I hope we don't become a nation completely dependent on factory farms and monopolistic corporations to provide us with goods and services.

Clearly, I'm an idiot.

What really matters to America in the 21st century is making sure "gay" doesn't become syonymous with "happy."

NOT gay.

Because if we let same-sex couples get married, then...

...then...

...uh, America will...

...that is to say...

Well, I'll let presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney explain why he pledges to support a Constitutional amendment denying legal marriage to gay couples:

"Marriage is more than a personally rewarding social custom. It is also critical for the well-being of a civilization. That is why it is so important to preserve traditional marriage – the joining together of one man and one woman."
Source: MittRomney.com

OK, so marriage is critical to the well-being of civilization. Because...well, Mr. Romney doesn't actually say why. Personally, I believe that legal unions produce more stable family units, greater transmission of shared values, and a more solid foundation for raising educated, productive citizens. So let's agree to agree on that point.

Therefore, marriage must be defined as the joining together of one man and one woman. Because...well, Mr. Romney doesn't say why here, either. Let's see. I guess it's because only heterosexual couples can have children. Except the ones that can't or don't want to. And the homosexual couples who adopt or use surrogates.  I guess it's because heterosexual couples never break up. Ha. Haha. HahahaHAHAHAHAHAhahaha!

Stop, you're killing me.

All right, I'm not sure why a social conservative like Mitt Romney doesn't want people, people who want to get married, to get married. I mean, other than not liking gay people, which would be a silly and bigoted position to take. Oh, and that whole "one sentence in the Bible says homosexuality is bad" thing. Yeah, I'll say this once: I'm not electing a spiritual leader. I'm electing someone to keep us out of the next war/recession/other bad thing.

I don't care what Mitt Romney thinks about gay people, and I don't expect him to "do anything about" them. See, I expect our next President to keep my gay friends from losing their jobs or getting cancer from food additives, too, as well as my straight friends, my immigrant friends, my poor friends, and even people I don't like at all. That's the President's job.

Now, on the other side of the race, President Obama has declined to come out in support of gay marriage, although he did repeal the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy and oppses the Defense of Marriage Act. But you know what? I don't care.

Stitch that up and frame it.

I mean, those are good things that President Obama has done. But I've got to say, I'm way more interested in what he plans to do about the volatile relations between Israel and Iran than I am in gay couples' wedding plans. No offense, and I know it's an important issue, and not just to gay people. I just don't think it's Job One for the President to declare that scissoring has equal status with missionary position in the eyes of the law.

I don't want to hear anybody's views
on the subject, frankly.

Yet the news bites and the debates and the entire freaking campaign keeps getting sidetracked to the supposedly crucial question of whether gay couples should get to have a go at the incredibly rewarding, validating, tiresome, and difficult institution of marriage like the rest of us. Meanwhile, no one is explaining to my satisfaction why Congress refuses to close tax loopholes on corporations that hijack the free enterprise system.

For God's sake (see what I did there?), let people get married and enjoy the protections and shoulder the burdens afforded by that particular legal status. Do it for no other reason than to get the government out of people's bedrooms and back on the business of healing a badly battered America.

That's my radical, leftist view. Apparently.