Two weeks ago in this space we wrote that the dog days of political Summer have come early this year, and so far it looks like we were right. There haven’t been a whole hell of a lot of interesting or important things happening in the world of national politics lately. Since the last time we wrote, unemployment has ticked down, gas prices have ticked down, and we stopped a bunch of terrorists from blowing up another airplane. You know, all in a day’s work for Barack Obama.
The country is unmistakably heading in the right direction under the president, and all the Romney folks can say about it is “Yeah, well, uhhh, well, yeah we could have done better probably we guess.” If John Edwards’ trial is getting any kind of headlines at all, you know there’s not much of actual importance happening in the news.
So we’re going to talk today about something a little more sexy in the world of politics. Penises. Penises with wedding rings on them. Gay penises with wedding cockrings getting gay married gayly. We fully endorse that.
Even as we type this we’re watching some people from North Carolina argue about the semantics and minutiae of exactly how banned gay marriage should be in their state. There’s a referendum there today asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. Of course, enshrining bigotry into a constitution is hateful and loathsome and redundant and silly and all of that. But we say go ahead and do it, NC. Or don’t. Either way, it doesn’t matter at all. Won’t make a bit of difference.
Joe the Biden was on Meet the Press last Sunday. He personally endorsed gay marriage. When asked if the president would push for same sex marriage protections in a second term he did not say no. In the world of politics, not saying no is always a resounding yes.
Barack Obama is as savvy a politician as has ever set foot inside the beltway. He knows how to get things done. Part of the way you get marriage equality done is not by shouting it from the rooftops every chance you get. All of the whiny lefties who wring their hands and bitch and moan that Obama isn’t a Progressive super hero need to understand that. They need to understand it and go out and vote for him anyway, because not voting for him is the same as endorsing both Romney and the Republican House. And when they do go vote for him and he wins his second term, he’s still not going to say anything about gay marriage…
Until the State of the Union speech. That is our prediction. We’re not even going to predict which one. Could be 2014, could be 2015. It’s likely going to depend on what happens to the house of representatives both this year and in 2014. No matter what though, Obama will make the repeal of DOMA and the protection of marriage equality a SOTU level priority. It’s something that’s as important to his own legacy as it is to the country, which is why he’s been so careful to handle it at the time of his own choosing.
And when he does North Carolina’s constitutional amendment won’t matter. Nor will any of the others out there. We’ll have a supreme court fight on this, and we’ll do it in the next four years.
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Oh yeah, almost forgot: The Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at Liam Flynn’s Ale House tonight at 7 pm. 22 W. North Avenue in Station North.