See Me Squeegee

With so much hostility and division in American politics these days, I’m taken back to a day when – true story – a friend changed my mind about a political issue.  And I’m hopeful that at least some people will read this and see a path toward changing one of their friend’s minds or even their own mind.  Here’s my story:

It was June of 2005 on a glorious summer day in Grand Tetons National Park.  I was on a cross-country-and-back road trip in the month before grad school started, and had picked up my college friend, Adam, in Idaho Falls the night before so that we could hit the Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota national parks on my way back toward Michigan.

At some point in the first hour or two of hiking the spectacular Jenny Lake trail, the subject of politics came up.  For background, Adam lived in (and had grown up near) New York City and was a relatively fast adopter of technology, ideas, etc.  I lived in, and had grown up in, Michigan, and am more of a slow adopter.  So while we had both voted for Kerry 7 months prior to this conversation, when the topic of gay marriage came up – perhaps because it had been a wedge issue that may have cost the Democrats a very winnable election – Adam was in favor of it, and I let him know that I was against it.

Now, it wasn’t at all the case that gay marriage was the only or even the main topic of our conversation over the next several hours of hiking.  But for a few minutes an hour, for a fair chunk of our food-and-water breaks, any time he formulated a new question to get my thoughts or I conjured up a new-and-seemingly-better reason for my stance – over the course of the day the topic kept coming up.  And to Adam’s credit he was never pushy or judgmental and he wasn’t always the one to return to the subject – he just asked questions that forced me to think about and try to defend my position.  And – spoiler alert – I didn’t do a very good job of it.

10am, hiking in shade maybe 15% of the way up the hill:

Adam: Wait are you against gay marriage in general, or do you just think that Democrats overplayed their hand?  You know Kerry wasn’t officially in favor of it.

Me: Well, both.  It definitely helped Bush that the GOP made it a wedge issue.  But I mean come on…gay marriage has been illegal forever.  Why change that now?  And why do liberals have to fight for it and risk losing better foreign policy, economic policy, stem cell research, and everything else?

Adam: Isn’t it just civil rights?  Why should it be illegal?

Me, forced to defend that position maybe for the first time ever: It’s just always been illegal.  Why change?  It’s not like anyone is saying that gay people can’t live together and love each other.  The word “marriage” just has specific meaning, a man and a woman.

Adam: Interracial marriage was illegal. Should that have stayed that way?

Me: No, man…that’s different.  <picks up the hiking pace, points out a cool view of the lake>

11am, closer to halfway up the hill, drinking water in the shade:

Me: I was thinking about what you said about interracial marriage, and of course that is and should be legal.  But gay marriage, man – why can’t it just be civil unions?  Marriage has that meaning – it’s more of a church word than a legal word.  It’s a man and a woman.

Adam: But calling it marriage doesn’t mean churches have to recognize it.  It’s separation of church and state, man – churches can do what they want, but if the government is involved everyone should be treated the same.  Right?

Me: Yeah, but it is the same – if you want to marry the opposite sex it’s called marriage, and if you want to marry the same it’s a civil union or whatever you want to call it.

Adam: So like Plessy vs. Ferguson, separate-but-equal?

Me: Come on, man – I’m not Jim Crow here.  It’s just…it’s different.  People can’t help being black, but choosing to marry someone…

Adam, interjecting: You know it’s not a choice, right? There’s scientific proof.

Me: But getting married is.

Adam: Shouldn’t everyone have access to the same choices under the law?

Me: I don’t know…this one’s just…different.  I see your point, but I just see it differently I guess.

12:30pm, almost to the top now:

Adam: So let me ask you this: even if like you say it’s different, why does it have to be illegal?  Why should we tell thousands or even millions of couples that their relationships aren’t as valid as other people’s?

Me: I don’t think we’re saying that necessarily.  We’re just saying it’s different.

Adam: So if a couple has been together for decades and one of them is in the hospital and visiting rules say immediate family only, you don’t think they should be able to visit just because they’re the same sex?

Me: I mean…they should.  They should just change the hospital rules.  Wouldn’t that fix it?

1:00pm, eating Clif bars at the top of the mountain, soaking in the view:

Adam: So other than “it’s different” what’s your real opposition?  Why does it even affect you?  Doesn’t it just affect the people who want to get married?

Me: It just…it just kind of cheapens the word marriage.  Marriage means something and has for centuries.

Adam: So drunken Vegas marriages, the huge divorce rate, the prenuptial agreement industry, reality shows where contestants meet each other and get married right away – those don’t cheapen the word marriage, but two men who love each other and want to make a commitment to each other getting married does?

Me: I mean…I guess not.

Adam: So what’s your opposition again?

2pm, picking up the pace after having stopped with other hikers to watch some bears near a stream.  (If somehow the bears get hostile, we don’t have to be faster than the bears, just faster than those families we’re leaving in our dust!)

Me, grasping at straws: You know, I guess if it’s not in a church then gay marriage doesn’t really threaten the traditional idea of marriage.  But even in the government sense…aren’t they just kind of cheating the system to reap the benefits?

Adam: What benefits?

Me: You know, like tax benefits.

Adam: What tax benefits?

Me: The benefits of filing jointly.  The whole point of government recognizing marriage is to encourage families, having children, paying into Social Security and all that.  But if gays are reaping those benefits, then we’re not subsidizing the right stuff – the point of subsidizing marriage is to encourage reproduction.

Adam: I don’t know, man – I don’t think you have much of an argument there. My dad owns an accounting firm…we can call him when we get back to the car and see what kinds of tax advantages gays are shooting for, or whether he’d advise two men to get married for the benefits.

Me, realizing that that call might not work in my favor: I mean whatever…I’m just saying.

By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain again, I had gone through essentially the same progression I had when I was a 10-year old desperately trying to justify my belief in Santa Claus. I wanted this position to be true, but there just wasn’t a good case for it other than “that’s the way it’s always been, and I like it that way” (sidenote: my “maybe there are regional Santa Clauses” was a decent attempt at justifying the logistics of the situation, but alas wasn’t to be…).  If on the way up the mountain I thought I had a good position and just needed to better defend it, by the way down I realized that:

1. There just wasn’t a good reason to oppose gay marriage other than “it challenges the worldview I’ve developed about relationships since I was a toddler.”
2. I was being kind of a jerk about it if I continued to hold that viewpoint.  Real people had a real, pressing interest in this issue, and I was holding on to my position solely out of convenience and reluctance to change.
3. Even worse, I was making up “facts” to try to justify this position I had taken sort of on a whim and held to solely out of convenience.

But note – Adam never said any of those things.  He just asked enough questions and gave me enough space to realize it for myself. He didn’t confront me; he merely steered the conversation just enough that I had to confront myself.  And the epilogue here isn’t just that three years later I cast a vote in favor of same-sex marriage, but even broader than that that I learned a handful of lessons I think are really important.

Lessons Learned

1. The woke need to be patient with the waking.  This whole conversation worked because it could take place in small chunks over a long day between good friends.  Had Adam called me names or belittled my opinions it would have made for a really rough trip and a much less receptive response from me.  But by steering me toward my own realizations, he made it so that I still enjoyed the heck out of a beautiful day in the mountains and I came to some profound conclusions.  Everyone should have the benefit of these kinds of long walks/hikes/bikes/whatever with a good friend who wants to open their mind.
2. It’s not good enough to “have an opinion.”  It had better be an informed opinion.  What pains me the most as I look back on my opinion is that not only did I not have any good reasons for my position at the time, I hadn’t really done much thinking about it at all other than deciding “nah I don’t like it.”  Real people’s lives hang in the balance when we vote, and yet too many of us make knee-jerk decisions for no reason…or we make up our own false reasons.  There may well be good reasons to vote against certain progressive social justice reforms, but by and large the reasons you hear from people are as closed-minded and just wrong as mine were.  People shouldn’t have to suffer for your convenience or because you didn’t take the time to understand an issue before voting against it.
3. Progressive causes are almost always right.  This one may be controversial, but much like St. Paul’s walk to Damascus opened his eyes, my walk to Jenny Lake opened mine.  Whichever oppressed, downtrodden, marginalized group is looking for a fairer shake – whether it’s gays seeking to get married or to adopt, trans people wanting to use the bathroom, blacks looking for better treatment at the hands of law enforcement, Syrian or Central American refugees seeking asylum – the arguments against them are almost always either emotional (“what am I supposed to tell my kids if their friend has two mommies?” / “do you know how hard it is to be a cop?”) or just plain made up (“these refugee children could be members of ISIS or MS-13!”).  If you genuinely consider the plight of those who would be affected and weigh that against reasoned, well-sourced models of the possible negative effects of such a policy, the negative effects seem to always be outliers whereas there are thousands, millions of people who are already being horrifically negatively affected by the current situation.  Sadly, most opponents of those positions don’t seem to even consider the facts – I know I didn’t in my steadfast opposition to gay marriage.

I write this as someone who wasn’t always “woke” – who had to wake up and realize how wrong I was and, embarrassingly for someone who considers himself smart and practical, how cavalierly I adopted and stuck by my position without being open to really thinking about it.  I urge fellow progressives to find opportunities like Adam did, to softly challenge and steer someone toward the light.  And I urge those opposed to that progress to just open your mind and consider other perspectives.  It’s not wrong to be a slow adopter, but if you know you’re a slow adopter like me it’s important to be conscious of that and to challenge your way of thinking, particularly when the consequences are largely immaterial to you but hugely important to someone else.