The Personal and the Political: The Gay Marriage Edition

Sometimes, I really hate that the personal is indeed, political. I wish our leaders would do the right thing just for the sake of doing the right thing, not because they are suddenly touched personally by an issue.

But, as I get older I have decided to look at so many issues I have believed are essentially political, through a more human set of eyes. Here is NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on gay marriage in New York state. The emphasis is mine:

In a speech on an issue that is roiling the State Legislature, Mayor Bloomberg declared that he could “see the pain that the status quo is causing — and I cannot defend it.” And he said that New York, as the birthplace of the gay rights movement, should live up to its reputation as a beacon of freedom and tolerance.

“We are the freest city in the freest country in the world — but freedom is not frozen in time,” he said to a audience in downtown Manhattan.

It was an unusually personal address from a mayor known for dispassionate number crunching and policy analysis. Mr. Bloomberg was introduced by a niece, Rachel Tiven, who is gay. In his speech, he said that he had grown tired of trying to explain to gay friends, relatives, and staff members why the government is denying them the right to wed.

“I cannot tell them that marriage is not for them,” he said at Cooper Union, which was founded by an abolitionist, Peter Cooper.

I remember many years ago -- 1998, to be exact -- when then-New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato got the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign in his reelection campaign against now sitting Democratic Senator Charles Shumer.  It was all about what the large, gay rights organization considered to be his good record on gay issues.  My immigrant mother was absolutely convinced there was NO WAY someone like D'Amato could have come to be pro-gay rights all by himself.  Simply because it was the right way to be.  She was insistent it had to be because someone he loved and cared about had come out of the closet.  And that this was a not-a-very-good-thing.  Not good public policy, so to say.  Basing political decisions, on personal happenstance.

I suspect that is not the case with Mayor Bloomberg.  But it has got me thinking about it all today, nonetheless.