Bush's Speech...

After a night spent driving my mother around drunk and walking through the back roads of Fallbrook calling her cell phone in the hopes of finding it along the sycamore lined streets at one in the morning (which we did eventually find), I completely forgot to watch the speech by Bush today. I watched it later and was about to write a response, but then I read a response in one of the blogs I like to read that had a more personal response that I thought was far better than what I might have said. It's from this guy's blog. Here is what he wrote:

What exactly will happen to marriage if you let two men or two women through the doors of its glorious institution? Will the divorce rate increase? Will people refuse to get married in disgust of what marriage has become? Will women cheat on their husbands, or will men leave their wives for prostitutes and prescription drugs dependencies (which is what we call addictions when white people have them)?

We've rolled this debate up in the metaphor that marriage is somehow an "institution." That sounds like it has doors and windows and established rules and a stable history and tradition for as long as man can remember. But, it doesn't. Marriage comes off looking like some kind of enormous country club, and they'll be damned if they let the niggers in. The place would go right to hell.

And that's their prerogative and their position, and I respect that, because I agree with them--letting men marry men and women marry women will change the idea of marriage, and that's very scary to someone for whom change is very scary. Not because it destroys marriage, which has gone through a lot of changes over the centuries without breaking into pieces--but because it legitimizes same-sex relationships, which have also gone through a lot of changes over the last 20 years, but are still fragile and new.

I think it's the country club effect keeping same-sex marriage opponents on the defensive. Why don't you want niggers in your club? Because what the hell are the neighbors going to think. And why do you imagine they'll think that way? Because you would. And why would you? Because, deep inside, for true reasons you have never put words to, you really don't like black people.

Whatever you imagine gay people to be, I'm sorry if you don't like them. A lot of us really aren't that bad. And I apologize that we've spent decades shining lights on your boogeyman, but we've worked hard for even this much legitimacy and dignity, and we have more to lose than you have to gain by your kicking us to the floor yet again.

I thought that was great. And, I wish I could write as well as this guy. His writing reminds me of what my english teacher at the prep school said, "Good writing is good thinking" and this guy, apparently, is a killer thinker. I also like how he speaks personally instead of legally, even though he's a law school student...