By Cliff Dunn

I recently had a conversation with a member of our staff, a bright, “small-y” young Republican with whom I occasionally trade political commentary and likewise tender barbs, concerning an editorial I wrote two weeks ago (Florida Agenda, Feb. 23, Editor’s Desk: “The Dream Within the Dream, Or, The Rise of the ‘Jim Queer’ Law”), in which I declared “No matter how well-meaning the supporters of civil unions and domestic partnership legislation may be, they must understand that for LGBT Americans, we cannot, we will not, endure an era of ‘Jim Queer’ laws and be thankful that things are ‘starting to move our way.’ That’s just plain un-American.”

I don’t in any fashion mean to put words into the mouth of this generally thoughtful young gay conservative, who apparently took umbrage with the last part of my manifesto, because, in his world-view, the voyage towards marriage equality has already pulled into the station. To his mind–and presumably to the minds of many other patriotic and rational gay men and women of goodwill–civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other similar legal ‘arrangements’ fulfill some sort of moral equivalence between those—gay and straight—who want recognition of marriage rights for all Americans, and those—gay and straight—who think that there is some room for a middle ground or compromise position.

I sympathize with them, because I am–in my own fashion–“guilty” of it myself. The “Sensible Center”–which I often extol as being the most reasonable, rational, and “American” of political ideologies–is a wide-open space, in which can be found political progressives, conservatives, and moderates, as well as social traditionalists, radicals, and reformers, all of whom share a common urge to find the “common ground” and reach political compromise and solutions, preferably in a civil manner. The bipartisan “Gang of 14” U.S. Senators who successfully negotiated the spring 2005 compromise to confirm George W. Bush’s judicial nominees is one such example of the “Sensible Center in Action.” Sadly, so was Plessy v. Ferguson, as was the Dred Scott Decision. Call it “Tyranny of the Sensible Center in Action.”

The difficulty for the Sensible Centrist is when he realizes that getting good and pissed-off is sometimes the only “sensible solution” (just ask my copy editor). Compromise is an American value, but so is taking on a righteous fight when it is called for. LGBT Republicans take note: George Bush (both of them, in fact) knew that the expiration date for “compromise” with Saddam Hussein had come and gone; our arguably-greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, acted with decisiveness, purpose, and lack of moral ambiguity when “compromise” with the rebellious states of the Confederacy proved inadequate. “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present,” he told Congress in 1862 while his nation experienced the agony of civil war.

Only Nixon could go to China, and perhaps it took a chaps-and-nothing-else-clad leather daddy or rainbow-colored-wig-bedecked drag queen in a San Francisco Pride Parade to place gay rights on the human rights radar screen. Producers and writers in the early days of series television took great professional and even personal risk to depict the trials and agonies experienced by minorities in 1950s and 60s America. In a 2009 issue of American Profile Magazine, Paulette Cohn, former TV Guide editor, wrote that that “was very difficult to do on television. Most shows that tried to do it failed because the sponsors didn’t like it, and the networks were nervous about getting letters.” In a very real sense, the hunky—and white–Capt. Kirk had to kiss the sultry–and black–Lt. Uhura in 1968 on “Star Trek” to pave the way for Barack Obama sleeping in the White House, because it planted the seeds in the culture for a tolerance that certainly didn’t obtain a generation earlier.

If we are going to change the culture into one where gay rights are human rights, then we have to convince ourselves of the evil of half measures. As a resolute Lincoln told an uncertain and even frightened Congress on that December 150 years ago, “As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Cliff Dunn is the Editor of Florida Agenda. He can be reached at Editor@FloridaAgenda.com.