by Tom Pantera
Columnist

As Americans, we live in interesting times.

We have arguably the most dysfunctional federal government we’ve ever had because one party has decided that it’s most important function is not to govern, but to merely obstruct those who wish to. But the seeds of solving that problem may lie in something else we’re seeing.

It feels like there’s a sea change going on in the area of gay rights. I don’t know what started it. It seemed to happen after Obama publicly endorsed gay marriage. I’m not sure that’s true – maybe it was building for some time – but it feels like that sea change has broken a dam. And the changes seem to be coming in clumps. NBA player Jason Collins announces he’s gay and gets a lot of public support for it and a few days later Rhode Island becomes the 10th state to legalize gay marriage. The pace of change seems to be gathering momentum.

Interestingly in the Collins case, much of what you hear rather than opposition is apathy. Last week, the online magazine Slate ran a column by Josh Levin recounting several of those public “I don’t care” statements. He argues that it’s a new form of homophobia; I don’t completely buy that but there might be something to it.

The other explanation I’ve heard is that straights are starting to realize that they’ve always known a lot of gay folks. I also find that explanation unsatisfying; we’ve all known that one friend or cousin who was a “confirmed bachelor,” if not actually out of the closet. Why would be just be realizing it now?

I remember when that happened in my own family. Years ago, my cousin died of AIDS, when it was still largely a disease affecting the gay community and it was almost always fatal. When Victor got sick, the family came up with some cover story about the illness, but I think everybody suspected the truth. One day my mother called me into the kitchen and said, “I’m going to tell you something that may shock you, but then again it may not. Victor has AIDS.” My reaction was something like, “Okay, so what’s the shocking part?” It was probably the least unexpected piece of bad news I’ve ever received (I didn’t know Victor well, but he was a very sweet man).

Of course, those who oppose gay marriage have never really made a case that would convince anybody who didn’t already agree with them. I have never heard even an attempt to explain how gay marriage would harm straight marriage. And even if there was one, it would be hard to argue that a stable gay marriage does any more harm to the institution than a Kardashian marriage where the ceremony lasts longer than the relationship. Many gay marriage opponents fall back on a literal reading of the Bible. That won’t convince anybody who doesn’t believe in the same literal reading and it certainly won’t convince people who aren’t Christian.

This is probably hopelessly naïve, but maybe people are starting to realize that arranging their morality or political beliefs around a distinctly minority view not only doesn’t work, it screws things up. Most people honestly don’t care that anybody else is gay; they know it doesn’t affect them personally. And even if it did, they’d be more likely to deal with it on a personal level rather than agitate for legislation concerning the lives of the majority of the population, people they don’t know.

As depressing as the whole gun control debate has been for those of us in the fact-based community, maybe there’s a similar light at the end of the tunnel there. When 90 percent of people favor background checks and Congress won’t provide them, it starts to wake people up. I think people who are going to start to ask why the NRA, which represents a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority (Second Amendment absolutists who are a minority of NRA members who are a minority of gun owners who are a minority of American citizens), should have a disproportionate influence on public policy. Granted, it’s a matter of money – the NRA may have other purposes, but in public policy it operates entirely as a gun manufacturer’s lobby – but money will only take you so far. When children start dying of gunshot wounds in double-digit numbers at the same moment, people know instinctively that there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. Some of the most vocal pro-gun folks are driven by a large dollop of paranoia, but eventually people are going to begin to question that and will see that there’s no there there, just as there was no there in the anti-gay marriage movement.

Some of the needed changes in this country are going to come slowly; gun control is only the most obvious example. But the way society is starting to view gay marriage is encouraging. It’s showing a large dollop of rational thinking. That’s always in short supply, but sometimes once the dam of irrationality breaks the floodwaters of rationality can move pretty quickly.

There are, of course, other factors. The Internet, for example, gives a loud voice to small numbers of disingenuous greedheads and cranks, who serve them as useful idiots. But there’s even a silver lining there; once those folks get boring, which is quickly happening, the mass of populace will tune them out and rational people can have a rational debate.

That may not happen for a while, but smile when you get that wedding announcement from your formerly-confirmed-bachelor cousin. It may be a sign of better days ahead. Of course, the real sign would be a Constitutional amendment barring marriage by anybody named Kardashian.