For Love or Money

By Bill Maher

Gay marriage has been the law of the land for some time now and it hasn’t precipitated, as predicted, the collapse of traditional marriage, which is defined as being between one man and one woman… and his porn star and a couple of Playmates. In fact, gay marriage has become as completely accepted in America as legal weed, yoga pants and texting while driving.

Last month, NBC News reported on a comprehensive Public Religion Research Institute survey, which found “a dramatic increase in support for same-sex marriage across all racial and ethnic groups and almost all religious groups just since 2013. More than 6 in 10 – 61 percent – of Americans say same-sex couples should be able to marry legally, compared with 30 percent who are opposed. Five years ago, support was at a bare majority of 52 percent.”

This is weird. In an era of red team vs. blue team, where everything is politicized and we’ve become so defiantly entrenched in our beliefs, there’s movement on this issue. As institute research director Dan Cox told NBC News, “[T]he sea change in support for LGBT rights that now crosses lines of race, ethnicity, religion and geography means that LGBT rights are becoming one of the few areas of public agreement.”

So what is it? Why have we been able to get our policies to match up with public sentiment on this issue but not on other “us vs. them” issues like gun control and climate change? I’ll tell you what it is – money. There’s no money to be made in keeping gays from marrying, but there is in in keeping guns unregulated and carbon emissions pouring into our atmosphere. Is that who we are now – the people who only do what’s right when it costs nothing?