Navigating past the ‘ick
factor’
By Wesley Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
This is not what Barack Obama expected for a
coming-out party. The “historic” revelation that he
is now fully evolved, as from tadpole to frog, and
now grooves on same-sex marriage, was meant to be
marked with quiet ceremony. No music, no flowers, no
kiss, no dancing, not even a cupcake.
Rage and outrage over same-sex marriage would take
everybody’s mind off the dreary economy, which
whimpers on. Everybody was then supposed to shut up
and get back to work (for those with work).
Instead, the president gets his photograph (with a
rainbow halo) on the cover of Newsweek magazine as
“the first gay president,” all the Sunday-morning
political talk shows were devoted to endless
gasbaggery about gays and marriage, and even Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, the heartthrob of the Upper East
Side, complained that the president’s coming-out
might have set back the campaign for “full equality”
for gay caballeros.
Several Democratic senators who comprise an
endangered species in November – senators from
Montana, Missouri, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and
Florida – quickly began trying to put distance
between themselves and the president’s evolutionary
moment. Opposition to same-sex marriage is strongest
in black precincts, and losing only a percentage
point or two in turnout could be fatal to Democratic
candidates, including the president.
If that were not bad news enough, Rep. Barney Frank,
the most celebrated gay dog in Congress, says he
won’t invite Mr. Obama to his long-awaited nuptials,
scheduled for July. He doesn’t want the vast
presidential security apparatus tracking through the
house, with Secret Service agents stepping on the
tulle and peau de soie and banging into the wedding
presents spread out everywhere.
The president called some of the five pastors he
consults regularly for religious guidance, needing
five (instead of the one pastor the rest of us
usually rely on) to repair the collateral damage,
which the White House fears might be considerable.
The New York Times calls this “a quiet campaign to
contain the possible damage among religious leaders
and voters.”
Mr. Obama is not the first president to require a
full squadron of clergymen to repair damage to his
inner man. Bill Clinton appointed several
high-profile pastors to rehabilitate his inner man
in the wake of “that woman, Monica Lewinsky,” though
it was Bubba’s outer man who caused all the trouble.
Bubba promised a public accounting of the
reclamation project, but the job has apparently
taken longer than anticipated and he has not yet
delivered the results.
One preacher Mr. Obama consulted said the pastors
“were wrestling with their ability to get over his
theological position.” But it’s the president’s
political position, not his “theological position,”
that he is most worried about. Indeed, theology
bores him; he slept through hundreds of the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, and he says he never
heard any of the pastor’s bombastic rants against
honkies, Jews and assorted other evil white folks.
The Republican leadership, grateful for the
president’s unexpected evolutionary gift, is so far
playing the game just about right. Rep. John
Boehner, the speaker of the House, dismissed the
president’s endorsement of same-sex nuptials as an
attempt to divert attention from the economy, and
was quickly seconded by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas
and Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican
National Committee. They’re aware of the “ick
factor,” and don’t want to talk about gays, sex and
marriage.
Mitt Romney went to Liberty University, a powerful
redoubt of Christian evangelism founded by the late
Jerry Falwell, to deliver the commencement address,
and made only one reference to same-sex marriage.
When he did, the stadium erupted in the longest,
most sustained standing ovation of the day.
Privately, some Republicans say they think the
president’s endorsement of the homosexual agenda
could tip voters their way in several states where
the vote looks close, particularly in states where
voters have restricted marriage to the traditional
definition of “one man, one woman.”
“Icky” or not, same-sex marriage is almost certain
to simmer on a front-burner, and is likely to be
decisive in some states; the Electoral College is,
after all, what a presidential election is all
about. Democrats chide Mr. Romney for his turnabout
on same-sex marriage, reminding everyone that he was
for it before he was against it. So, too, was Barack
Obama, indicating not only that political evolution
can run in two directions, but that principles and
convictions in politicians have a sell-by date.
Buyer, beware.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The
Washington Times.