Caroline Kennedy supports gay marriage

This news happened on Saturday, but I still wanted to bring it up because it's important, and I think says something about Kennedy.

For all the talk of Caroline being new to politics - well, beyond fundraising - she apparently has some backbone that a lot of other Democrats do not. Even Hillary, as gay friendly as she definitely is, isn't for marriage, and we all know that Obama isn't. All the while, the marriage bandwagon is going full steam ahead in New York state. The governor supports it, and the assembly, led by Danny O'Donnell, already passed it.

I used to be of the mind set that, even though I very much support and want marriage rights for gay couples, perhaps we should strive for easier victories first, like passing ENDA, and even getting DOMA and DADT repealed. And in any case, whatever we push for, I actually believed that we should give Obama a pass, for at least the first six months or so, so he could focus on the economy, then we could start talking about civil rights. Now, after the Rick Warren fiasco, after being slapped in the face before Obama is even sworn in, after being the only minority community to be Sista Souljah'd out of the box, I'm rethinking my conservative, more strategic, approach to civil rights.

Playing nice with our friends, giving them a pass, being willing to slow things down in order to achieve more in the long term, hasn't been yielding results. Instead, it's been giving us "victories" like Rick Warren speaking at the invocation, when no other civil rights community is being asked to "suck it up" for the team. We are not rewarded for being good team players, there seems to be no benefit for good behavior, so why do it? If Team Obama wants to put gay rights on the bottom of the pile, then maybe we should raise it to the top of the heap, immediately. Maybe then our community will get a little respect, if only by being a royal pain in the ass until we do.