Gordon Smith
Senator Gordon Smith is up for re-election in Oregon this fall. He's a reasonably popular moderate second-term Republican (12 years in office) with a tendency to go with the flow and vote with the majority on hot button issues. He has gone against his party in support of withdrawing troops from Iraq, but has been a bit more wishy-washy about it than the mainline Democratic position.
In the past, Gordon Smith has won endorsements from gay rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign on the grounds that, well, he's generally a supporter of gay rights. But since proudly accepting that endorsement and winning the gay vote in 2002, he's supported Constitutional amendments to prohibit same-sex marriage on both the State level in Oregon and multiple times on the national level with his vote. The Human Rights Campaign has so far declined to renew its endorsement and if anything will likely defect to the Democrat, and Basic Rights Oregon, the major statewide gay rights organization, has already endorsed his opponent, Jeff Merkley, who by contrast has a sterling pro-equality record.
Thus my dilemma: Under most circumstances I would support Senator Gordon Smith, especially because the Democrats are so powerful this election, and having that tempered by Republican moderates in Congress strikes me as a good thing. But Gordon Smith has betrayed us and betrayed me. I don't want the current legal discrimination against same-sex couples encoded into the Constitution of my country, nor my State. He does. I don't consider popular support for discrimination sufficient justification to encode it Constitutionally. He does. And that's nearly unforgivable.
Senator Gordon Smith specializes in riding the political winds. He's famous for waiting until the last five minutes before a vote to see whether it'll pass or not and then joining the majority. The Gay Rights Movement has been a quiet political machine, a stone wheel grinding away, slowly but surely, steadily if quietly improving the standing of gay individuals and couples under law, moving forward across rough ground with jumps, starts, and setbacks, but inexorably over the long run. Before, Gordon Smith rode the winds alongside this power, used it to boost him into bipartisan support and re-election. Now, for reasons completely unrelated to those why the Republican establishment is on the verge of electoral disaster, he's ridden the political winds straight into a position where he is at risk of being crushed by the very machine that helped keep him in power.
And I might be happy about that.
I like moderates. Just not on this issue.
In the past, Gordon Smith has won endorsements from gay rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign on the grounds that, well, he's generally a supporter of gay rights. But since proudly accepting that endorsement and winning the gay vote in 2002, he's supported Constitutional amendments to prohibit same-sex marriage on both the State level in Oregon and multiple times on the national level with his vote. The Human Rights Campaign has so far declined to renew its endorsement and if anything will likely defect to the Democrat, and Basic Rights Oregon, the major statewide gay rights organization, has already endorsed his opponent, Jeff Merkley, who by contrast has a sterling pro-equality record.
Thus my dilemma: Under most circumstances I would support Senator Gordon Smith, especially because the Democrats are so powerful this election, and having that tempered by Republican moderates in Congress strikes me as a good thing. But Gordon Smith has betrayed us and betrayed me. I don't want the current legal discrimination against same-sex couples encoded into the Constitution of my country, nor my State. He does. I don't consider popular support for discrimination sufficient justification to encode it Constitutionally. He does. And that's nearly unforgivable.
Senator Gordon Smith specializes in riding the political winds. He's famous for waiting until the last five minutes before a vote to see whether it'll pass or not and then joining the majority. The Gay Rights Movement has been a quiet political machine, a stone wheel grinding away, slowly but surely, steadily if quietly improving the standing of gay individuals and couples under law, moving forward across rough ground with jumps, starts, and setbacks, but inexorably over the long run. Before, Gordon Smith rode the winds alongside this power, used it to boost him into bipartisan support and re-election. Now, for reasons completely unrelated to those why the Republican establishment is on the verge of electoral disaster, he's ridden the political winds straight into a position where he is at risk of being crushed by the very machine that helped keep him in power.
And I might be happy about that.
I like moderates. Just not on this issue.