Today was a good day. The Democrat-dominated House of our wonderful northern neighbor Vermont overrode GOP Governor Jim Douglas’s veto on a law to legalize same-sex marriage (picking up three votes from moderates that had opposed the legislation the first time). The liberal grassroots – text message, Facebook, Twitter, email lists, you name it – erupted in jubilation. “Four down, 46 to go,” one Facebook status declared. Today, my optimism in human progress toward tolerance and social enlightenment proved itself grounded in the way of the world.
Or was it? Today, I also discovered that gay men in newly-democratized Iraq are unable to live openly without fearing for their lives. The NYTimes headline: “Iraq’s Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder.” A nation is ‘liberated,’ we strike a blow for freedom and self-government and increasing freedom for all people to live as they will, and this is what we get. The prejudices of society, after all, remain; the ‘hearts and minds’ must not only be won, they must also be converted.
Herein lies the irony of self-government: oppressive regimes keep vigilantism in check. And the irony of cultural relativism, tolerance, and Obama’s model of respect for other countries’ self-determination: it is always the minorities and oppressed of those nations who are left to suffer. That’s the tradeoff of this new Grand Strategy I see emerging from Obama’s and Clinton’s trips to Turkey and China, respectively. The question is if it jibes with even his progressive values to stand for one set of rights at home and another one abroad.