Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: A night of VP’s
I’ll talk about Sarah Palin’s performance as a debater tomorrow. Right now I just want to repeat what Joe Biden said about same-sex couples in last night’s debate:
“Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.”
Just words of course and the proof is in the pudding, but even the crankiest queen cannot discount that these words signal serious paradigm shift. A vp candidate saying that 10 or 15 years ago would have sunk the campaign. Utterly and completely, Heck eeven Palin’s stammering repsonse shows how the landscape has changed.
This does not mean the struggle is over but to have folk who want to lead the nation actually talk about us minus degradation? That is a change I will admit I never thought I would see in my lifetime.
I don’t feel that Sarah Palin was pressed enough about her true feels for gay relationships. She chose her words carefully to appear to be in both camps. She didn’t want to alienate the base so she only conceeded that they wouldn’t do anything to stop hospital visitations or contracts between couples. Big deal! If she were pressed a bit more by Gwen Ifill, she may have been forced to spill her guts about her true feelings. It wouldn’t have been pretty. She had no choice but to sign the partner benefits. The court ruling didn’t give her much choice. She signed it under protest. Gwen assumed that her signing it meant she supported it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She didn’t set Gwen straight about that. Palin is dangerous.
In turn, I found Palin far more receptive and honest on the subject of gays. You could tell in the way that she phrased her answer that she was attempting to not completely upset the base and get her own feelings expressed. Remember, she is the only one on either ticket that has done anything legislatively supportive of gay folk.
I think Biden was sincere about equality, but please look at Palin’s phrasing/framing of the question.Her last remark:
“But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.”
“Visitations” are NOT the same as power of attorney. “Contracts” are NOT the same as commitments recognized by all states and employers.
Palin was coached very well. Very well, indeed.
Biden, I know that this may be a difficult concept for you but the concept “separate but equal” is not equal.
I have to agree with Withers’ assessment. I, too, was quite shocked that Palin didn’t go after us with both guns a blazin. Perhaps we are truly getting to that point where it is politically incorrect to denegrate the GLBT population.