I'm not fond of Hilary Rosen being put out there as a pundit or a spokesperson for the Democratic side of the aisle for a whole lot of reasons, a good number of which can be read about in Susie's post here which lays out who she's worked for or represented. That said, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage, she was exactly right with her comments she made as a member of the panel on This Week over the weekend and her noting that "straight people don't need any help tearing down the institution of marriage."
I've got a co-worker that has been Jesus-ed into believing that gay people being allowed to get married might somehow interfere with him not being allowed to get divorced again and maybe remarried again, since he's on his second marriage now and is terribly frightened by those evil gay people are somehow breaking down the institution of marriage. And when you try to talk to him about it, it's about as productive as talking to a box of rocks. He's stuck and stubborn on his stance that gay people being allowed to get married is some sort of abomination.
My fellow liberals at work along with myself haven't had much luck with him, but I remain hopeful that more people making the points that Rosen did here will eventually get through to some of them even if we never manage to change my friend's views. The real damage to the institution of marriage has not been gay people wanting to get married. It's the number of divorces and broken families we've seen with straight couples. And as she noted, getting married, or serving in our military, which are issues the gay community has been pushing for where they would like to have equal rights, are what would normally be considered "conservative" issues or values.
If "conservatives" really cared about the so-called institution or marriage, they'd care more about the issue of divorce, which of course they will never do since they'd have to drive the majority of their members out of their party. They're much happier fear mongering and gay-bashing instead while ignoring the fact that they really don't care that much about the institution of marriage at all, unless it means their fellow citizens they'd like to discriminate against can't have access to it.
Transcript of the clip above below the fold.
