Well, conservative ol’ cuss Rep. Phil Travis (D-Rehoboth) is out next year. He was one of the major opponents of gay marriage, and is throwing in the towel.
My favorite Phil Travis moment came this summer, when he defended the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, saying it would keep present same-sex marriages intact:
State Representative Philip Travis, a chief supporter of the 2008initiative and leading opponent of gay marriage in the Legislature,added that undoing marriage rights for those gay couples would beunfair.
”I would never go back and say, ‘Your marriage of 3 1/2years is nullified,’ " said Travis, a Rehoboth Democrat. ”That wouldnot only be unfair but mean-spirited."
I couldn’t agree more. That was a moment of someone betraying some essential decency and compassion in spite of himself.
Why can’t we help ourselves? The guy is leaving but you just couldn’t resist a personal swipe on the way out the door. Unnecessary, unwarranted and unhelpful. When we can respect that reasonable minds can reach different conclusions and yet we can still remain civil, that will be the day when our party regains control of the agenda.
Well gee whiz, read the post again. Most people would think of “essential decency and compassion” as a compliment — I just don’t think he followed through on that instinct.
“…in spite of himself.”???Maybe Charlie should re-read…if this is a compliment I’d hate to see an insult. The English language isn’t all that hard to figure out. It’s no wonder that voters tune us out when our most active party members sound so damn shrill.
Yes, “in spite of himself” because I think he was dead-wrong on the issue.IOW, if he was decent enough to realize that it would have been “unfair and mean-spirited” to cancel folks’ marriages ex post facto, then he might have been decent enough not to try to prevent them in the first place. Somehow he never made that connection.