In the face of the evident intention of the President’s political advisers to use “gay marriage” a wedge issue in the coming campaign, Andrew Sullivan makes a good point:
If this president wants to stake his re-election on writing a minority of citizens out of the federal Constitution, then the stakes will be as unnecessarily high as one can imagine, and the already deep cultural divide in this country will widen still further. This president doesn’t need that. It’s not what many of his centrist and moderate supporters want. And he has far more important things to do. In those vital things, most specifically the war on terror, the last thing he needs is to polarize this country even more.
This is precisely right, but of course it applies to much more than gay-baiting. In wartime, the politics of division isn’t merely wrong; it’s unpatriotic. When George Allen of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee sends out a letter describing Democrats as “our enemies,” he’s helping our real enemies: the ones trying to kill us, not just retire Mr. Allen’s cronies to the comfort of the private sector.
Perhaps if Mr. Sullivan has a mirror handy, he might discover another public figure who makes a living creating unnecessary discord.
“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”