Friday, April 11, 2014

Some announcements just shouldn’t matter

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     In the past year, two athletes, one a professional basketball player and the other a college defensive end, who had just been named the Defensive Player of the Year, announced to the world that they are gay. This week, University of Massachusetts starting guard Derrick Gordon told the rest of us that he is gay. For his teammates and his coach, who have known all year, it just doesn’t matter. The time when that is true for the rest of society can’t come soon enough.

     At this point, homosexuality not being the concern of government seems like wishful thinking. Homosexuality resides in a significant religious and cultural divide. Attitudes developed through religious faith or community identification are deeply engrained and will not change easily. Private beliefs, however, are not the same as public policy.

     Ten years ago, a significant part of the conservative forces in electoral politics used same-sex marriage as a successful wedge issue to build a base and attract wider voter support. Conservative states such as Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mississippi are among the 33 states that have attempted to stop the current march toward same-sex marriages, using their legislatures to make decisions that should more rightly reside outside the public purview and inside the private.

     More and more, Americans are asking themselves what right the government has to be involved in the most intimate parts of our lives. Where government is involved, the courts, the president, even many clergy, recognize marriage as a contract matter rather than a religious one. From Maine to California, 17 states have legalized same-sex marriage.

     It will be best when such marriages and announcements from young basketball players are met with a media response of, “Who cares?” That day is coming closer, perhaps faster than anyone imagined only a few years ago.

     National polling by the Bloomberg organization reveals growing public acceptance of same-sex marriage. Few Americans say they’d like to live in a state that makes it more difficult for gay and lesbian couples to wed, a sentiment that business leaders have factored into an emerging political activism.

     Derrick Gordon expressed pure joy at making an announcement that allows him to be who he fully is. He considers himself lucky that his college coach, his teammates and his family supported him in his announcement. We will all be lucky in our civic life when an announcement like his is so typical it just doesn’t matter.

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