I've been seeing The Countdown's latest Special Comment pop up everywhere today, but on the off-chance anyone's missed it:
I love it. I said so on Oh, You're a FEMINIST (and my comment may still be awaiting approval), and I'll say so here. I like Keith Olbermann and I enjoy The Countdown, even as I often feel he's gone too far and stridently in the direction of the left. Some of the things he chooses to care about baffle me, as in the case with the supposed Sarah Palin on SNL incidents (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, all the better; I wish I didn't know what I was talking about - thanks, Keith). I've often thought that if one of the editors of The Nation Magazine is the one telling you to chill out on the crazy leftist agenda, maybe you've gone too far from time to time. But as I said, I like him; and I agree with the underlying principles in much of what he says, no matter how much I sometimes - good naturedly - roll my eyes at the voraciousness of his comments. However, this special comment is special in that I genuinely feel emotionally moved by his perspective. I not only agree, but I feel as though Keith Olbermann has hit the right note in which to express this opinion. It isn't strident or overly sanctimonious. There is no bluster or waving of the finger but a genuine concern and disappointment over this election decision. I'm one who feels as if weddings and the ceremonies are practices in frivolity, and that those things are ridiculous. But I wish the people who desire to participate in them no ill will; I'm not anti-marriage. And, as Olbermann states, it is a "semantical grain of happiness", so why, in the name of anything one holds dear, would anyone wish to bar someone from such a pursuit? And so, hats off to Keith Olbermann and his special comment on a disappointing loss.
2 comments:
I still don't get the notion that gay marriage destroys the sanctity of marriage in a way that divorces do not. Isn't a divorce far more destructive to the sanctity of marriage? Yet we are in an era when over 50% of married couples dissolve their marriage and many go on to re-marry! That seems like much more of a slap in the face to "love, honor and cherish as long as you both shall live," at least to me. Which is not to say that I want to rescind the right to divorce. Far from it! Without the right to divorce and re-marry, neither I nor several of my closest friends would have been born into our families. I just think that the freedom for anyone to break their marriage contract at any time was and is a much bigger threat to the "sanctity" of marriage than the freedom for couples of any sexual orientation to marry.
John, I think opponents of gay marriage would definitely contend that divorce sullies the institution of marriage. In fact, one of the most common arguments against gay marriage is that it will increase divorce--or, at least, weaken a state's ability to assert a "compelling interest" in discouraging divorce.
It's funny you mention this, since I actually think the Burkean arguments against gay marriage are some of the most effective (even though I'm not convinced by them).
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