Political Courage

I've been thinking about my last post and how elected leaders tend to wait until the majority of people agree with them. In other words they don't lead, they follow. It's always been that way, even George Washington seemed to understand that slavery was bad, but the votes weren't with him. Even Abraham Lincoln's first move as president was to propose a constitutional amendment which would allow slavery forever (look it up!). It wasn't until the Civil War had erupted and the majority of the voters recognized the evil of slavery. In race relations presidents like the Roosevelt's made small gestures to today's views but they lacked the majority support to make any major policy changes. Gay civil rights are in roughly the same phase right now. I would wager that most politicians recognize the inherent inequality in treating some people differently. When the majority of voters let them, I'm sure they will be happy to come out in favor of it. There are a number of libertarian ideas which also fit into that boat. The drug war against marijuana, for instance, makes no intellectual or economic sense. But the majority of voters seem to be for it, therefore the politicians refuse to make waves. It makes me wonder, how would people react to a leader who actually took the lead on an issue? What do you think?

Same Sex Marriage

I support same sex marriages. It's the right thing to do. It's the fair thing to do. It's the just thing to do. And I'm not just saying that because as a family lawyer it will lead to more work for me down the road :) It's an interesting issue because there are no good arguments against it. If anyone would like to suggest any, please feel free to comment. It's an interesting issue because of how politicians dance around it. We live in a democracy so if the majority of people want to pick on a minority, it's hard to find a politician brave enough to challenge the majority. That brave politician will quickly find themselves unemployed. Nothing about the argument for or against same sex marriages have changed in recent years, the change has been in public opinion. For the first time, the majority of people are in favor of it. They have realized that it's a non-issue. Same sex marriages do not affect most of us. They have literally zero impact on our day-to-day lives. Governor O'Malley came out in favor of it and the majority of votes needed to pass it through the General Assembly were found. Recently President Obama announced support for it. Now that public opinion shows a small majority in favor, politicians are able to come out of the wood work and announce their support for it. Republicans are still held captive by their conservative wings. Having spoken to quite a few local Republican politicians off-the-record, I can say that they recognize the absurdity of banning same-sex marriages. They are personally in favor of same-sex marriages but they can't step forward for fear of being bashed by their own party and voters. My prediction is that in 10-15 years, these same Republicans will be talking about how they quietly supported same-sex marriage and suppressing their shameful voting history up until now. The tides of history are marching forward. Shame on you North Carolina.