If you read the gay press, you’ll find much bellyaching about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s filing an appeal of a judge’s decision demanding that the city grant marriage licenses to gay couples. N.Y. State Senator Tom Duane, a longtime gay activist, called the mayor a “coward” while most of the Democrats vying to oppose him in the fall election have been tripping over themselves in order to denounce this Repubican.
And these very Democrats and gay activists forget to mention that this good man believes the issue of gay marriage is “better resolved in the Legislature, where he pledged his help in pushing the issue, rather than the courts.” Yep, we’ve got a Republican Mayor willing to promote gay marriage in the state legislature. But, because he doesn’t think courts should decide this issue, a gay activist has called him a “coward.”
And while those on the left can’t cease their bellyaching about this Republican, they don’t have the stomach to take on Democrats who have the same or similar stand on gay marriage. Indeed, they eagerly supported John Kerry’s bid for the White House even as that Democrat claimed to have fundamentally the same position on gay marriage as President Bush. Indeed, these activists have backed many a Democrat who are less open to gay marriage than the Big Apple’s Republican Mayor.
As Bill Hammond writes in “THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS,”
those attacking Mayor Bloomberg on the gay marriage issue seem to have a blind spot when it comes to members of their own party. . . .
. . . they stayed quiet as Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Democrats’ rising star, fought and defeated three similar lawsuits in upstate courtrooms.
Spitzer says he personally favors letting same-sex couples wed, but feels obliged as an elected official to enforce the law as written and traditionally interpreted. Sound familiar? It should, because that’s exactly the position the Republican mayor is taking.
Two politicians have the same position on a gay issue. Gay activists only lambaste the one with the (R) after his name. Hammond notes further that this “double standard extends to other top Democrats. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer both oppose full marriage rights for gays.” Let’s see now, this Republican Mayor favors gay marriage (and is willing to push it in the state legislature) and gay activists call him coward while these two Democratic Senators oppose gay marriage and the same activists give them a pass.
Seems the issue is less one’s stance on gay issues than his (or her) political affiliation.
Hat tip: Log Cabin/LA‘s February e-mail.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com