You’ve no doubt read enough about what President Barack Obama’s public statement about gay marriage means. That is so last week. But as I’ve been catching up on my podcasts, I’ve discovered an important element missing from the coverage. What it means to the metanarrative of American politics.

The Negative

Much of the obvious response defaults to the negative. As in, how Obama’s public statement would negatively effect his political ambitions. What is important in this response is that it assumes that the default position is negative. Perhaps this is appropriate considering past views on homosexuality, but it must be stated that this is a lens used as a default position.

The Politics

There was the response that this was playing politics and that it is all about the horse race of electoral politics. Of course, that may be true in some sense, but when dealing with deeply personal issues, it is hard to believe anything such as this is entirely about politics.

The Money

Of course, there was the strange statement from (I believe) The Washington Post that 1-in-6 big Obama donors is gay and he was courting some big, short term donations. This, like the The Politics argument, implies such a Machiavellian, unfeeling response to the issues that I cannot imagine this president to be so craven.

The Balance

This is the view that there must be some upside and downside to every decision and that they magically balance. So Obama must be rallying his base, which will have some upside, in hopes that the benefits will outweigh the risks of alienating more moderate voters.

The Short-Term Relevancy

Lastly, there is the commentary that Obama is courting some short-term relevance, while banking on the fact that gay marriage won’t be the deciding issue of the election, and couldn’t be the deciding issue this year no matter what.

Reframing Liberalism

What is missing from the above commentary approaches is the idea that this may actually be a truly positive, long-term solution to what threatens the president and liberals in general. What if what is most important about this public statement was that the president has made a public stand.

Now, I am not taking this as the historic argument, that it is important in the abstract: that he is the president that is making history and therefore his stance is historically relevant. Much to the contrary. What is most important is that he is a liberal taking a provacative stand on a divisive issue at all.

Despite the banality of our dualistic approach to politics it is more true that liberals avoid taking stands as they preference compromise and action to the theoretical in our current paradigm.

All of this reminded me of an email I got from my old blog. It came from a young man raised in the Anglican Church of Canada. He wanted to return to church, but was having trouble with his options. He said he couldn’t go with a conservative evangelical church because, to his mind all they do is take divisive stands on issues. And he hated their stances. But he did love their enthusiasm and conviction.

He argued that the opposite was true in the church in which he was raised. He argued that they didn’t take stands on issues, and had trouble articulating their faith. He wanted to be a part of this group, particularly because they weren’t intolerant except that he didn’t want it to be a double negative: he didn’t want to go someplace because it isn’t intolerant, but someplace that is tolerant. And even more, he wanted them to declare how and why tolerance is important.

His experience left him believing that these communities he was a part of were tolerant, but they couldn’t express why. He was afraid, too, that they may confuse tolerance with  indifference. That the people tolerated everyone without cause and without conviction.

In this way, for Pres. Obama to take a stand on a divisive issue (even if it isn’t as far as many supporters would want it to be) is to break the paradigm that says liberal leaders don’t take stands on divisive issues. It is to upend this cultural stand-off between liberals as universalist appeasers and conservatives as intolerant traditionalists, recasting himself as a liberal leader that does stand for something.

Far more people want leaders to stand for something, with conviction, even one that goes against their view point. More people are likely to rush toward a leader that stands up, than the one who can’t come out and say it. And, at the same time, many more people also want a leader that is tolerant and respects the complexity of the world. A leader that can cast him or herself as representing both can win big.

So in the case of Pres. Obama, he has much more to gain by bucking the paradigm than he does to lose. Early polls are not likely to bear this out, but over the long-term, making a case of taking stands and supporting the things we all already believe he supports mitigates any conservative advantage on the issue, while maintaining in those areas of strength.

What about you? What might you need to stand for that you have thus far avoided? What are your thoughts about taking a stand?

Related articles

• Obama on the High Wire – NYTimes.com (mbcalyn.com)