Al Gore on gay rights and equality before the law

This is a remarkable rebuttal of the 'family values' argument often used in the US (and indeed in the UK by some people) to justify not permitting gays and lesbians to have equality before the law in all spheres:

"Shouldn't we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one's partner regardless of sexual orientation?"

Frankly I have never before heard a senior politician in any country express the views Al Gore expresses quite so candidly and unambiguously.





Before I get carried away, though, Al Gore has the 'luxury' of not standing for office and not having to win the votes of many people who would not be prepared actually to vote for someone expressing the views he does now. A luxury granted him by his status as a former Vice President and more recently by his quasi-elevation to 'secular sainthood' since becoming a Nobel Prize winner. I doubt very much if any of the current batch of potential Presidential candidates in the US, whether Democrat or Republican, would be prepared to endorse, far less emulate, Al Gore as they would know, probably quite rightly, that it would be electoral suicide; the same could probably be said of most politicians in the UK, too, even in a country which already has Civil Partnership legislation in the statutes. Unhappy as I am to write this, it is the bald truth. Very good to see it though and even if he's not standing for election nevertheless quite courageous.
(thru Andrew Sullivan)