Jimmy Carter disappoints on the issue of Texas and gay marriage

[Zenlitened]

53. Hiding behind (and, frankly, distorting) Freedom To Marry's strategy...

... doesn't make you any less wrong. And using them to make smarmy implications about the LGBT group, that's just lower than low.

You can shout "nuh uh! nuh uh! nuh uh!" as much as you want (or as much as the group hosts will permit) but the plain fact is you're out of your depth on this subject. As is shown by, among other examples, your repeated efforts to redefine the notion of "states' rights."

When I'm out of my depth on a topic, and people are kind enough to point this out to me, I try to hear what they're saying. I find that hectoring and haranguing marginalized people who have good reason to know better than I do... well, it doesn't really accomplish anything, except to add to their burden.

Let me say this plainly: You're not acting like much of an ally here. You seem to be putting your loyalty to Pres. Carter ahead of -- way ahead of -- the concerns, experiences and hard-earned insights of people who live with the reality of discrimination every day. Whose entire life trajectories have been affected by the bias against them. And who, as an inevitable consequence of living one more minute, one more hour, have been fighting this fight in ways large and small literally for decades.

So, no, your link to Freedom To Marry doesn't impress me. It merely suggests that you're willing to use any- and everyone in service of... what, exactly? The gubernatorial aspirations of the grandson of someone you happen to like? The electoral odds-making around the Georgia statehouse? The care and feeding of your own ego?

How ridiculous, how wrong. No one's "stomping on Carter" here. People are pointing out shortcomings in the words he spoke, the idea he expressed. The idea that voters in Texas should be free to -- have the right to -- exclude lesbian and gay couples from marriage. An idea that has caused very real harm to generations of people in every state of the nation.

I'm sorry if their objections don't suit your political calculus at the moment, but... well, no, I'm really not very sorry at all. This is about so much more than election-year intrigue, or some drawing-room debate on the mechanisms of government. This is about real people living real lives, and I think you've done them a terrible disservice with your antics here today.