“I think gay marriage should be allowed if there’s a ceremony kind of thing if you want to call it that. I don’t have any problem with that…I think private ceremonies are fine. I do not think gay marriage should be legal.” –John McCain (via: Towleroad)

This double speak from McCain is what could lose him the election.

It had the power to bring down Kerry in the last election. Hillary’s lack of authenticity as pointed out regularly by Arianna Huffington(a May Huffington Post piece which also notes that McCain’s authenticity was “getting paler by the minute” even then.) and her coyness on gay issues is a big negative, not only in terms of not standing with us, but in terms of her ability to win if she’s given the chance to run and hasn’t gotten less coy by then.**

That said, McCain’s comments provide an opening for us to change this political discussion. I’ve been meaning to finish a post i started on this sometime back. Watch for it soon. Perhaps today. This might be just the news peg for me. We give the oppostion the edge by agreeing to discuss “gay marriage”. Gay marriage is allowed. We can get married with the blessing of many religions, communities, and most importantly by our own free will.

**ASIDE: And i remain wary of Ms. Clinton’s well-known and long-held position that democrats must not openly and unequivocably support gay and lesbian issues if they want to win, going so far as to blame her shortsighted, unpolitic attempt to change healthcare on her husband’s gays in the military issue and staying away from support ever since.)

Photos by Buck82 and Hot Rod (both Flickr cc)