This country is in dreadful economic trouble and there is an election coming. One might think that the most important issue would be the economy and what to do about it, and voters would be thinking along these lines in order to decide which man is more likely to help boost the economy.
But no. Some see the most important issue as gay marriage (I saw TWO billboards on Interstate 94 over the weekend), especially the disagreement between Brad Pitt and his mother.
Brad Pitt’s mother, Jane, threw her support behind Mitt Romney earlier this year, criticising Barack Obama for his liberal views on same-sex marriage. However, the Hollywood star tells Mandrake that the American president retains his vote.
“I am an Obama supporter and I’m backing his election campaign,” Pitt says at a screening of his forthcoming film Killing Them Softly, at the Mayfair Hotel in London. “Gay marriage is inevitable. The next generation, they get it. It is just a matter of time before it becomes a reality.”
He may very well be right about gay marriage being inevitable. But how is that a reason to vote for Obama? The man is a latecomer to supporting gay marriage, and while his opponent opposes gay marriage, he is distrusted by anti-gay Republicans for having been previously gay friendly. It’s not as if the president has the magical ability to enact gay marriage by fiat or stop it in its tracks. He is charged with enforcing and upholding the laws of the land and protecting and defending the Constitution. Neither Obama nor Romney will have a magic wand or a kill switch.
Not only is gay marriage not an executive office issue, it is so low on the list of voter priorities as to be almost frivolous, which makes it a “safe” battleground, without consequence. The political cost is virtually nil; Obama’s pro-gay-marriage single-issue voters will not blame Obama if it fails, nor will Romney’s anti-gay-marriage single-issue voters blame him if it succeeds.
Those who think the economy and the rampaging federal debt are more important will just have to learn to ignore these distractions.
MORE: I wasn’t joking about the billboard on I-94, and I saw two of them last weekend.
Comments
3 responses to “Brad Pitt and his mama”
Gas is $4 a gallon, and I’m supposed to care if two dudes get married?
I’ve seen those billboards, also. (Was it along I-75 on the trip towards Toledo? Or the Telegraph Road artery on the west side of Detroit? Maybe I saw them on both stretches of road…)
I suspect it is the local GOP trying to do a two-birds-with-one-stone trick.
The Detroit Metro area has lots of Black voters who supported Obama. And who also supported the Marriage Amendment vote in Michigan. (Back in ’04, when the State of Michigan went for John Kerry by a 3% margin.)
Then there are the Catholic voters in the area. I can’t remember if they leaned Democrat or not, or if they are a notable swing group. But they, and any other swing voters whose religious sensibilities are offended by these issues, are being targeted.
From the perspective of partisan politics in Michigan, it makes sense for the State GOP to try to discourage those voters from voting for the Democratic candidates.
From the perspective of politics in the long term, I’m not sure whether this is a good idea or not. But political power-brokers rarely look beyond the horizon of the next election…
I agree with you in this: these issues are much less important than the problems of various government budgets and the economy of the nation.
Or the issue of the intrusiveness of the government, and the way it allows one group of partisans to punish their cultural enemies.
Gay marriage and abortion: two issues that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Reasonable people can support one without supporting the other. This is a distraction.