Kerry's views on gay marriageJOHN KERRY will have my vote in November because the alternative is so repugnant and such a threat to this nation, and the world, that we cannot afford to let anything interfere with unseating the current occupant of the White House. But it must be said that Kerry's separate but equal beliefs about gay marriage, being reiterated so forcefully and stubbornly the very week we were celebrating 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education struck down the concept as unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American, is telling.
If the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education had occurred in May 1956 instead of 1954, as the presidential election approached, would the Democratic nominee have insisted that, in his view, as long as we made sure that African-American children were receiving the same benefits as whites, we should continue with separate-but-equal schools, and avoid all the hardship and upheaval of imposing integration throughout the South and elsewhere? The gay marriage issue is revealing the degree to which people presume to blur the distinction between religious belief and state policy. Our governor is a prime example. His Mormonism is everywhere on display in this debate. Kerry's Catholicism may dictate what is in his heart, but he is running for office in a nation where that is supposed to be beside the point, by law. I believe he will rue the day, in hindsight, that he stood on the wrong side of this historic moment, however noble his voting record has been on gay rights issues. Marriage between consenting adult human beings, regardless of gender, is here. If he is not, he risks more than votes in the long judgment of history.
PAMELA CAMPBELL CLEAVES © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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