Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Interesting

This is interesting:
Utah Governor John Huntsman (who, needless to say, is a Republican, not to mention a potential 2012 presidential candidate) has come out in favor of gay civil unions. It's not gay marriage, but it is Utah.
It is surprising that a prominent conservative Mormon is saying this, but this isn't new: wasn't George W. Bush in favor of civil unions? Of course, he ran in 2000, which was before the theocons decided to make gay marriage and abortion their jihads.

It does, however, seem like Republicans of all stripes are coalescing around civil unions as an alternative to gay marriage in the wake of several states legalizing gay marriage. The battle lines are once again shifting, and this is tremendously encouraging, actually. If there can be robust civil unions in Utah the battle for equality is mostly won. Of course, the Utah Legislature will have to approve.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.