(UPDATING MY HEADLINE — I will likely tweak it a few more times)

I normally watch each debate (as I did with each convention speech, for that matter) about 3 - 4 times before the night is over when I am working the late shift for C-SPAN.

But, while watching/working the Vice Presidential Debates on Thursday night, something that both candidates — and even the moderator — said caused me to really take pause.

I spun around in my chair.

I dropped what I was doing.

And I sat and listened to this (this whole segment is upsetting on many levels, but it is especially the last line that is most disappointing and I will tell you why):

Catalyzed by the question posed by the moderator (PBS’ Gwen Ifill): “Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?” Sen. Joe Biden answers: “Absolutely….”

Ms. Ifill then tweaks the question for Gov Sarah Palin: “Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?” To which Gov. Palin answers: “Well, not if it gets closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition between one man and one woman; and unfortunately, that’s sometimes where those steps lead.”

PAUSE.

I want to establish these five points before moving on:

  • Ifill takes the cautious and yet bold steps to get at the heart of the matter: should gay marriage be allowed.
  • Biden avoids the issue by focusing on the Obama/Biden support of benefits.
  • Palin knows where Ifill is going with the question and takes it head on (got to give her credit). I couldn’t disagree with her answer more, but credit for taking on the real issue.
  • Benefits = not the issue.
  • Equality, i.e., being seen as equal in the eyes of the law and our entire society = the issue.

UNPAUSE.

So, we have Biden ‘getting out of’ taking on the issue in the first round and Palin using moral language to equate the expansion of same-sex benefits to a “slippery slope” of “vice” (her tone and use of the word “unfortunately” are at once patronizing and revealing). Listen closely to what Palin says. She, in just a few lines, makes it clear that (1) she is “you know, tolerant” and that it is ‘ok’ for gay people to “chose relationships” — not going to problematize the choice/nature argument here, but note that I do take issue with her trivialization here AND (2) is ‘not ok’ to define marriage as anything but that which is “between one man and one woman.”

I ask you Gov. Palin: How is this tolerant? How do your words teach the next generation acceptance when you stop so obviously short of full personhood? It is unacceptable. (FWIW: I have written at length what is at stake in previous posts and unpublished writings.)

And don’t think I am letting you, Sen. Biden, get away so fast. In another previous post, I related that I had not done my homework yet on your stance here. Well, tonight, you sort of made my job easy. You said it all. In fact, you, Sen. Biden, and your running mate, Sen. Barak Obama, are shying away from the opportunity to give real Hope and enact real Change. Those are your monikers and mantras, are they not?

You avoid the real issue of equality in exchange for more moderate political stripes and, ergo, more votes. I get the sense that you might actually support gay marriage on the federal level if you were not under such political pressures (or at least, it is my hope that the supposedly liberal, tolerant and progressive party that is the Democratic Party stands for such equality). Then again, maybe not.

And while Gov. Palin’s morally-charged sentiments that hearken back to the vice-police days bounce around the emptiness that is Sen. Biden’s half-stance, stance I learned all I needed to know about both in these final sentences from all three folks on the stage and many in the audience:

Ms. Ifill: “Do you support gay marriage?”

Sen. Biden: “No, Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. […]”

  • What about what the “civil side of things” said about the rights of African Americans prior to Brown v. Board of Education?
  • What about what the “civil side of things” said about a woman’s right to vote before the 19th Amendment?
  • What about what the “civil side of things” said about a woman’s right to chose before Roe v. Wade?

To Sen. Biden, I say this: The “civil side of things” has been wrong in our legal system and in our cultural landscape before and it is wrong here again. That you do not (1) see that, (2) agree with that and (3) do anything to see that this is righted has me question your intentions, principles and definition of equality.

Ms. Ifill then turns to Gov. Palin: “Is that what you said?”

Gov. Palin: “Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.”

Ms. Ifill: “Wonderful, you agree. On that note, let’s move on to foreign policy.” (Laughter.)

To the candidates: You already know what I think of how you both approach this issue, but to review…

  • Palin: You are thinking in a single-minded view of marriage and dangerously evoke a very morally righteous “vice” tone when you allude to what [sounds to me like you are saying] ‘evils’ may ‘lurk’ around the bend of equality.
  • Biden: You fall short of a true progressive. You pander to the middle.

To Ms. Ifill I say this: There is nothing “wonderful” about their agreement. That they both agree about something that keeps a population of people in a second-class rank-and-file in this country is so far from wonderful, I would venture to pull out words like ‘despicable.’

To the audience I say this: You laugh uncomfortably. You laugh like you did in middle school. You laugh becuase you want to get on to the more ‘important’ issues like foreign policy and the economy. And while I do not for a second think these are unimportant, I do want to make a distinction of my use important here: the economy and foreign policy are not important in the way that impacts the very being, the mental/emotional health of an entire population of people.

While it can be argued that financial crises and violence abroad rock the very core/health of millions, it is an external set of issues that come to bear on these individuals.

Who you are, who you love, how you live… those are fundamental, internal and psychological issues. To not address the systemic, systematic, perpetuated and pervasive discrimination in this country on these internal levels as we do in the cases where there are external issues, while instead uncomfortably laugh it off because, as Ms. Ifill noted, it was a “wonderful” thing that both candidates “agree” — well thank God, we can [superficially] move on — is truly sad.

But we can’t move on.

And we shouldn’t.

Separate has not and will never be equal when it comes to legal, civil, moral and cultural laws and/or norms.

I have more thinking to do on this, but had to make sure to post about this before I went to bed. Thank you. -L.