As usual, worth a gander. I worry that we’re morphing. Here’s his statement about whom to supoport this November:
Tavis: Do you think that President George W. Bush deserves to be reelected?
Hitchens: [sighs] Well, it’s a tough call for me. I wasn’t-I certainly wasn’t for his election the first time round. I didn’t want Albert Gore, either, and I’m glad it wasn’t Gore, by the way. One has to face that fact. I must say I’m a bit of a single issue voter on this. I want to be absolutely certain that there’s a national security team that wakes up every morning wondering how to take the war to the enemy. I don’t have that confidence about any of the Democratic candidates, but I think that a Kerry-Edwards ticket would be made up of people who have shown that they are serious on this point, yeah. So I’m not dogmatically for the reelection of the President, but I’m for applying that test as a voter.
I’m pretty close to that. But my other two big concerns are the fiscal future and civil rights. I’ll try and support whichever candidate seems to me to be more credible on righting our fiscal ship in the near and distant future. And, of course, no self-respecting gay person will be able to support president Bush if he wages war on the most basic civil right by the most devastating means possible: a constitutional amendment.
RAMESH ASKS: If I believe that marriage is a basic civil right for all, why don’t I support or want the Supreme Court to rule so? Good question. I’m running to catch a plane but my brief answer is: I don’t believe people’s basic civil rights should be up to a majority vote. That’s why we have courts at all – to check majority tyranny. (When was the last time you heard a conservative worry about democratic tyranny?) I do believe in the process of debate, winning over the public, and doing this legislatively if at all possible – because it makes the reform more stable. I don’t think I can be accused of not living up to this. I’ve never filed a suit in my life. My work has been entirely in the sphere of public debate. I’ve written reams on this, including one early and critical book on the subject, and one anthology, where I published the arguments of my opponents! I’ve debated in TV studios and colleges across the country, literally hundreds of times. I’ve lost many readers because I have become a crashing bore on the subject. So obviously, I’d be thrilled if the country now suddenly agreed with me and passed laws in every state to allow gays to wed. But that’s not how these things happen. It takes time. In a mere fifteen years, we’ve clearly made enormous progress. We have marriage in three countries – Holland, Belgium and Canada. We’ve moved public opinion dramatically in our direction. The younger generation gets it entirely. But courts have a role. I don’t believe courts should never do anything but rubber-stamp majority decisions. I think the argument for equal marriage rights is so constitutionally strong it will take a federal constitutional amendment to deny gays their rights. I suspect the religious right agrees. So we now have to see if the general public finds gay couples such a threat to their life that they will write discrimination against them in the Constitution. I have to hope and pray they won’t. But I cannot be dismayed when courts include gay people as equal citizens in this republic. That’s their job. And it’s their constitutional duty.
The Dish 