I seem to recall that during the last national election cycle, gay marriage was a hot issue. This time around, except for when discussing Rudy’s precarious position with social conservatives, the topic hasn’t come up all that much. Why is that?

My position was then and remains today: why should I care if gays get married? Most studies into homosexuality point toward it being a biological trait, not a perversion or a manifestation of anti-social inclinations, so banning gays from marriage makes no more sense than banning left-handers from serving in the military (just keep the damn redheads out and we should be fine.) But that’s a separate debate for another time. I want to know why gay marriage seems to be, at least this far in the election cycle, a back burner issue.

I’ve always thought that the gay marriage issue is much more interesting on the Democrat side of the slate. Most Republicans will oppose it, with various degrees of passion, and will remain relatively safe politically in doing so. But on the blue side, candidates have to tread more carefully.

Although I believe that society is gradually, albeit slowly, moving towards acceptance of homosexuality, there’s still a good number of people who oppose gay marriage. And these people must be pandered to, especially by those with national ambitions. (I wrote in a previous post that I don’t believe that everyone who opposes gay marriage is a hateful bigot. I think some people’s feelings are a bit more complicated to paint them in such black-and-white terms.)

I don’t for one second believe that when Obama and Clinton voiced support for the Defense of Marriage Act, or against its repeal, that they were really against gay marriage. They were taking the politically safe position. Even though both have now come out against the act, it doesn’t come up much in their stump speeches these days, unless they’re preaching to the gay men’s chorus.

My only inclination as to why we aren’t hearing more about this issue is that appealing to independents, not just in the general election but in the primary as well, is deemed crucial to candidates in both parties, more so than usual. Since independent voters aren’t as predictable as straight-party voters in their positions, perhaps it was deemed best by the competing strategists not to risk alienating anyone by making it a significant part of their platform.

I suspect that when the general election campaigning kicks in, we might hear more about whether Heather’s two mommies should be allowed to make honest women out of each other. I’d rather that we didn’t. The less uproar surrounding this issue, the more likely that sounder reasoning will prevail behind the scenes.