During a round of golf this weekend an impromptu conversation about who is voting for who came up. My friend Phil is a life long Republican and is decidedly voting for McCain this year but, Bill has not quite made up his mind. Phil and I asked Bill why he would consider voting for Obama and he responded that he was a social liberal and issues such as gay rights were important to him. Otherwise, he was a fiscal conservative and was trying hard to like McCain even though J.S. was making it difficult. This got me thinking; exactly what are gay rights and why do the Democrats tend to hold such an edge with voters when it comes to gay rights? I argued that gays, by constitutional default, should have the same rights as anyone else in our society and thus need not worry that their rights would be violated regardless of which party held office. Since Bill stopped talking about it at that point we dropped the conversation and continued to hole out our double bogeys.

Hmmm. Bill was willing to risk higher corporate taxes, higher capital gains taxes and higher taxes in general via an Obama Presidency rather than go with the Republicans over the gay rights issue? I am not even sure what the gay rights issue really is other than the fact that Democratic pundits often site gay rights as an issue that is important. I have never even heard anything in the mainstream media that explains which rights gays would “gain” and which rights gays might “lose” regardless of which party wins the Presidency. Wouldn’t McCain also support gay rights? Maybe not, but maybe I just don’t know enough about this issue.

I never considered gay rights much before my conversation with Bill as a reason not to vote for a Republican. But, regardless of this fact is it altogether fair for Democrats to leverage the rights of gay persons in order to solicit votes? Buttonfield Thinks this issue deserves more research.

To be continued…

Regards,

Thomas Buttonfield