Here's a fun exercise.
1) Watch this clip of Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee and just bask in the joy that there are smart and funny liberals that get their own wildly popular show! Yes, I can say it too, we live in a great country!
2) Watch this again and really try to understand and relate to the perspective of Mike Huckabee. Embrace it, embody it, (ok I didn't say you will agree with all of it) but try your hardest to understand it.
3) Reflect on what you came up with...
When I am honest, one of my first thoughts was, there can't be many people that STILL think this way (oops seems I have a trace of judgement in me...) I realize that we are coming at this whole issue from such entirely different worldviews, though it seems we can both relate to the feeling of something being taken from us. Huckabee clearly does not want his definition of marriage taken from him. The rest of us :) don't want gays and lesbians to have what we consider to be human rights taken from them.
I would like Mike Huckabee to look at this issue from a human rights standpoint.
Mike Huckabee would like me to look at this issue from the point of traditional values and his views of right and wrong.
So where do we find our common ground?
Maybe we don't.
But we are talking about laws and government and we need to have some common law.
Did I tell you I heard this fabulous dialgoue with Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Kingwell, they were debating the effectiveness of awareness campaigns and what creates action. I think Gladwell offers a bit of a solution to our problem talking with the Huckabees of the world. You can watch the video here.
Basically the point Gladwell makes is that so often those of us fighting for this go the approach of thinking that awareness and calling upon people's humanity and empathy will be the answer. He says personalizing this issue is not at all helpful when trying to legalize gay marriage because that just opens the door to individuals feelings. You don't want to make people who are opposed to gay marriage aware of it on a personal level at all because that opens the door to all of the personal, moral, and psychological issues and prejudices that are preventing the forward movement of this issue. You want them to forget about all of that and never think of it in a personal way. He says the answer is to just make it an issue that is impersonal and is just about tolerance in a diverse society.
The question i have is, are the Huckabees of the world truly open to protecting diversity? I am not entirely sure, but I think that idea is so interesting.
Of course it is important to note, that awareness work and striving for the end of discrimination needs to be pursued. Maybe that needs to be done in the schools, and (I wish taught more often in the religious institutions) and the legislative work to reach equality needs to be impersonal and dry.
I hope that is the direction politics is going less on the sensationalism feelings that the religious right and conservatives were so good at using to divide us, and more focused on equality and what unites us.
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