It seems this election year the United States is the nation of deficits. The Associated Press reported yesterday that once again the U.S. trade deficit is growing, and that the federal budget deficit is in no better shape. The job deficit at home is increasing as outsourcing becomes economically and morally acceptable. Some argue that the U.S. has a "democracy deficit," threatening Iraq and Haiti. And finally, America's homeland security deficit seems omnipresent as threats of terrorist activity reach the airwaves.
But it seems that the most vexing deficit has its source in same-sex marriages -- what some have called America's "moral-deficit." Traditionalists say that the moral and civic faith of the U.S. is endangered by a minority of taxpaying citizens wanting to marry members of the same sex. They accuse progressives supporting the legality of same-sex marriage as contributing to the fallout of a theo-American Christian morality. Perhaps this is why cultural traditionalists have focused more attention on same-sex marriages then the recent upheaval in Haiti, for instance; Haitians do not vote for American politicians.
To be fair, the traditionalists are consistent. The foreign policy establishment has shown that despite norms of international law the U.S. has a moral duty to democratize sovereign nations. Essentially the equality of states before world-law is to be trumped in the face of an American moral imperative to export democracy. The American occupation of Iraq then is morally acceptable and necessary in order to uphold the status-quo democratic world order.
At home, the equality of gay America before the law is similarly trumped in the face of moral decree. As politicians on the right note, the unequal treatment of gays under the law is acceptable and necessary in order to preserve the status quo sanctity of marriage. The legal arguments proposed by those in favor of gay-marriage cannot compete with the moral arguments against gay-marriage. Such moral arguments were laid down over 1,000 years ago in the Bible.
Whether the U.S. is in moral deficit, one thing is for certain -- politicians in this election year must be careful to avoid such questions of "moral deficit" in favor of more important deficits. For example, while the political-media complex was engrossed in America's same-sex marriage dilemma, deficits in democracy in Haiti and Iraq began to mushroom.
Last week, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times realized that globalization creates pockets of labor shortages and surpluses around the world vis-^-vis outsourcing. This phenomenon is partially the cause of the current labor problem in the U.S. Is this labor deficit caused by globalization similarly unworthy of the level of controversy and litigation stirred by same-sex marriages?
The homeland security deficit seems to be growing as well now that the U.S. admits it is unable to control sources of fissionable nuclear material. This security deficit is, of course, worsened by the increasing trade deficit, where record levels of imports flood American ports, and therefore, more and more containers need to be checked.
The trade and security deficits are not the only self-sustaining deficits. The legal-democratic deficit in Iraq is taking a toll on the fiscal deficit at home. As long as Iraq remains undemocratic, Americans will see more and more money spent on war.
Issues such as gay marriage are expected to be made in an election year -- politicians have to divide and conquer the polity somehow. But despite the many deficits afflicting the U.S., the one which seems to stir the most election year controversy is same-sex marriage. That is a political deficit of all its own.
Michael Huerta's column appears every two weeks.
