A former Republican legislator from Michigan named Chris Ward
is apologizing for voting against marriage equality when he was in the state House in 2004.
Fellow Republicans, it is time to say congratulations to the many, many same sex couples all over Michigan who have won at least a short moment of equal access to the liberties and justice afforded to all the other adults citizens of our state.
Let us be gracious now, at least in this late stage in the game, drop the pretense and stop delaying the inevitable. There is no doubt we have written off an entire block of people from voting GOP for the foreseeable future. We deserve that. The world has changed, everyone knows it. Making people wait for their fundamental rights to live a life as they choose is just mean spirited…
Looking back now, one of the things that bothers me the most about the whole episode was how dehumanizing it was. It was just politics. But it wasn’t politics..these were people.
We singled out a whole group of people, most of whom just wanted to be left alone, to forcefully discriminate against them for short term political benefit.
All around us were our friends, COLLEAGUES, family members, highly valued staff members and people we care about who this clearly was going to hurt. Nobody seemed to think a thing of it. Like most people, including my constituents, I wasn’t comfortable with same-sex marriage at that point but I didn’t even bother to throw out a “hey we shouldn’t be doing this” or “look what we are doing to the people we care about”…
My own particular purgatory is to be forever doomed to be on the wrong side of history…
There can be no doubt at this point, same sex couples will have their rights recognized. It is only a matter of time.
Let’s do the grown-up thing and help heal the wounds we created. At the very least, let’s get the heck out of the way.