Today, Hillary Clinton was obviously rattled
by Terry Gross’s persistent attempts to clarify her “evolving” views on gaymarriage (start around minute 24). She wanted to know, essentially, if Hillary had actually changed her
mind, or if she had evolved her public stance because the country and the
conversation have evolved. It was, well, an awkward moment.
Here’s what I wish she would have said:
“I have always, in my heart of hearts,
believed that lgbtq people are children of God, endowed with the same
inalienable rights and worthy of the same dignity and protection under the law
as everyone else – including the right to marry. I have never changed my mind
about the dignity and value of my lgbtq friends or their families.
“I have also, however, always aspired to be a
public servant – married to, and being myself, an elected and/or appointed
official. I bring to that work a broad set of values and aspirations, and I
have done that work in a political climate that forces me to
make tough choices about how and what to support and when. In the early days of
the movement for marriage equality, I was not prepared to be on the vanguard of
that conversation. I believed it would have marginalized
me as a political voice and limited my effectiveness as a leader. I did and
said what I felt I had to in order to do as much good as possible in a system
that is tragically flawed. I may or may not have judged that situation
correctly. I will likely never know. These are the things that keep me up at
night.
“What I do know without a doubt is that in
doing so, my words about gay marriage were deeply hurtful to many people I
dearly love as family and friends. For that I am profoundly sorry and I beg
forgiveness. Every day. This, too – and much more so – keeps me up at night.
“May God and history judge me with both
fairness and grace.”
That would have been refreshing. But, of
course, she couldn't have said anything like that. Because we live in a political
culture that has (at least) two unforgivable sins:
1. Changing one’s mind is a moral failure.
You’re a flip-flopper. You have no backbone. This is the tendency
that leads many of our leaders (on both sides of the aisle) to blatantly
disregard data, evidence, science, math, reality,
in order to “stick to their guns” – touting the party line, because that’s the money
that got them elected. Truth be damned.
2. “Politics” is wrong. We expect our leaders
to be ideological purists. We do not allow that, in this broken system, one
must often make broken choices in order to serve what they understand to be the
greater good. Is it wrong to vote for a bill that makes real progress in one
direction but also takes us a few steps back on another issue? These are
choices our leaders face every day. They are now constantly campaigning. And I’m the first to judge and criticize. I’m
an ideological purist at heart. ("I'm watching you!") But I also have lived long enough to know that
the world is not so simple as that. Calculations are made. Sins are committed
in service of a greater good. I liken it to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decision to
participate in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He knew it is always wrong to kill a
human being. He also believed it was the best chance we had to bring the horror
of that war to an earlier end - and potentially save millions of lives. He sinned – and he sinned boldly – trusting that
God would judge him, and Hitler, and the world with both justice and mercy.
I personally find it inconceivable that
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have actually
‘evolved’ on this issue. That’s because I find it difficult to believe that two
people who have felt intimately – in their own flesh – the sting of systemic
injustice could actually believe that “separate but equal” is ever an
intellectually honest or just response to a human being’s yearning to be
regarded with dignity and justice. But that's just me.
Which means, of course, that I believe they
have both been shrewd and efficacious politicians. They have suppressed some of
their inmost convictions for the sake of broader goals.
I have never in my life believed – nor said
out loud – that lgbtq people are not worthy of equal protection under the law. I stand by that conviction, and I believe that history will show that I was, and am, absolutely right. But I also have never been – and will likely never be – a politician.
But they are. And they're good at it. And they suck at it. Because they are
human.
And the fact that they cannot be human –
truly human – in our presence, while being interviewed by Terry Gross… well,
that absolutely reflects poorly on them.
But I believe it reflects far more poorly on
us. All of us.
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