SSM AND THE ELECTION: INTERVIEW WITH SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM

...When I reached Newsom by phone on Thursday, he tried to joke off the criticism. "Hey, I'm responsible for the end of the free world," he said. "It's amazing -- for those who believe one person can't make a difference, look at me." But he sounded battered and tired, and admitted it. "When you defend yourself 400 times, you get defensive. You should see the stack of phone messages I have here. It hurts to be criticized by my party. But this issue began long before I even took office."

Newsom said it was the November 2003 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court -- declaring that its state Constitution sanctioned gay marriage and not merely civil unions -- that put the issue on the map. Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave then jumpstarted the backlash with a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. "So there were already plenty of promises by Bush and his administration that this would be a major issue in their campaign," he said.

I know a lot of liberals are feeling lonely this week. But I'm having an especially hard time because I have a lot of innate sympathy for cultural conservatives. I'm a working-class Irish Catholic -- as is Newsom, incidentally -- who moved away from the church because of its stands on women's issues. Yet all my lefty values come from Catholicism and I still miss it. ...And until Newsom went on his marrying spree, I thought Democrats needed to move very slowly on gay marriage.

Then I had friends and neighbors who got married -- and a few whose weddings got canceled when the California Supreme Court stopped the ceremonies in March -- and my worldview permanently shifted. Now I don't know how the party can turn its back on gay people who want to marry. ...

Even Newsom admits to some post-election soul-searching. To say he cost Kerry the election "is quite simplistic," he said. "But I'll live with the burden of never knowing," he conceded. He argued, maybe self-servingly, that one could make the case that he helped Kerry by deflecting attention from the Massachusetts liberal, whose state legalized gay marriage. "When we were in Boston this summer, you didn't see photos of gay couples getting married there," Newsom said. "All those images were exploited months earlier in San Francisco. We took the focus away from Massachusetts. And now, even the president all but supports civil unions. Dick Cheney supports civil unions. We moved the debate."

more

posted by Eve at 11:27 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home