In praise of a Republican

It's not very often that I praise a Republican politician in this blog but I have to give a tip of the cap to New York Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward.

A few weeks ago, the New York state Assembly debated and eventually passed a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage. It almost certainly won't be considered by the state Senate, whose Republican leader is more worried about keeping his job and his freedom. The fact that the bill is being supported by the Senate majority leader's archenemy, the governor, isn't likely to help its cause. But the debate on the issue was interesting.

A moderate conservative Republican and devout Catholic, Sayward represents an extremely conservative rural area of upstate New York. Yet she rose to the floor of the Assembly and kept members in rapt with her speech in FAVOR of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Her appeal was intensely personal.

Retiring AP reporter Marc Humbert writes:

For five minutes, Teresa Sayward spoke to the hushed chamber about her son. About his coming home from elementary school and asking what "fag" and "queer" meant.

"My son didn't want to be different. Lord knows, he wanted to change," she recalled.

"So I consulted the church. I read everything I could. I read the Bible. I read white papers on this issue. Surely, I could make him normal," said Sayward.

He also tried. He got a girlfriend in high school. It helped for a while, she said. His classmates were more accepting.

[...]

"When he would come home on the weekend, we would spend long nights crying together and talking," she said. "One night, I said to him, `You have to be who you are. You can't be what people think you should be.'

"And he said to me, `But Mom, I want to be normal. I want to have a house and a fence and a dog and children and I want to be successful,"' Sayward said.

"He did decide with us _ with his family, with his father and I _ that he would be who he was. And, he became much happier in life," she said. "I'm happy to report that my son has the house and the fence and the dog. And, he's raised two wonderful young men."

"Let's search our hearts tonight and do the right thing and vote for the civil rights and the human rights of all of the people that we represent and give them the right to marry the people they love just like I had the right, 43 years ago, to marry my husband," Sayward pleaded.

The applause went on for a full 20 seconds.

Her story was touching. It was also telling.

It's easy to hate people in theory based on an innate personal characteristic like sexual orientation (or skin color, ethnicity, etc.). It's a lot harder to hate someone who is your relative, your friend or your neighbor. Especially after you've already come to respect them for their character or other consciously chosen personal traits.

Not surprisingly, Sayward's vote has caused a bit of a stir in her hyper-conservative district. Some people have blasted her for not representing the wishes of her constituents. Others have suggested they won't vote for her in the next election based on this single issue.

I think this is a great example of why we don't have more principled elected officials in this country. If you stick your finger in the wind and do whatever the polls tell you is popular, you will be accused of believing in nothing. If you vote your conscience, you are accused of snubbing your nose at your constituents.

If you lead, you are 'out of touch.' If you follow, you 'lack courage.'

Jefferson said that people tend to get the kind of government they deserve. He was right.

I sent Assemblywoman Sayward (my legislator) a note of support and gratitude. To me, this is a simple matter of affording gay citizens the same rights as straight citizens. There's nothing revolutionary about that. Or at least there shouldn't be.

The Assembly's vote come only a few weeks after the 40th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's Loving decision. In it, the high court ruled that the state could not arbitrarily and capriciously deny two law-abiding, consenting adults from getting married simply because of unchosen, inate traits. As such, the Court voided a Virginia law banning a black person from marrying a white person.

The Court did not stick its finger in the wind and figure out what the majority of Virginians or Americans might have wanted at that particular moment in time. It ruled on what was right and what was constitutional. Hopefully more legislators like Mrs. Sayward will do the same.