Medical Marijuana and Gay Unions – America's Libertarian Dream

Perhaps it’s the economic crisis that makes people more tolerant. You’re thinking about your job, your mortgage, your future. So if you see a married couple, who happen to both be sporting mustaches and tuxedos; or if your neighbors have a medical prescription to buy marijuana, you just don’t stress out. You don’t worry about American values: if there ever were a time, perhaps now you might just feel like knocking and ask for a puff. News and polls say it’s a new America: not quite like pre-Summer of Love (San Francisco, 1967, that is the ’68 of the new Occidental lifestyles). This is a new America worried about the decline, maybe at the beginning of a more libertarian historical discourse. With this in mind, people celebrated – often illegally – last Monday.

From coast to coast, tens of thousands of people (a conservative estimate) gathered (in their homes, in bars, in parks) to celebrate Cannabis Day, a Californian rite that started at the end of the 70’s. In California a lot of people celebrated without breaking the law: there, as in Massachusetts, marijuana is allowed for medical use. In the case of medical reasons, users include actually ill people, as well as presumed sufferers of “anxiety” and “insomnia,” who get a prescription and go to a proper store [that dispenses medical marijuana]. Anyway, last Monday they were a lot – “never as many,” said Ethan Nadelmann, lobbyist of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington.

The idea of legalizing marijuana is entering the national debate. And in a surprising way: with Obama’s proper caution, and with the sufficient assistance of General Attorney Eric Holder, who announced that those selling marijuana will be prosecuted only if the law is violated both locally and federally; and with the support of a part of the liberal right-wing. The last one to agree is the new star-commentator of pro-Republican Fox News, Glenn Beck: he’s in favor of its legalization and taxation, just like alcoholic beverages. The less enthusiastic are college chancellors, even liberals (on Cannabis Day eve they sent well-advised and threatening e-mails). The involuntary testimonial for the new tolerance is that of Michael Phelps, Olympic hero, who was filmed while smoking weed and then discharged. At the House, the odd couple that proposed a bill to protect medical marijuana consumers is composed of Ron Paul, ultra-liberal ex-candidate for the Republican primaries; and Barney Frank, ultra-liberal Democratic, memorable gay member of the House. Speaking of which…

For a few days now you could have been having a laugh by watching an apocalyptic commercial produced by a pro-family religious group, in which it seems that gay marriages are as dangerous as the arrival of (communist) aliens. Many parodies have been made already. And “its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont,” wrote the editorialist Frank Rich in the New York Times last Sunday. His commentary “The Bigot’s Last Hurrah,” has been the most clicked article of the site for two days. According to Rich, the anti-gay movement is finished – even (some) conservative religious leaders are stepping off their position on same-sex unions – as “marital equality haltingly but inexorably spreads state by state.” We’ll see: surely it seems like the time of the Neocons and the waving of “family values” is over in America. (The most right-wing figure now is Miss California, Carrie Prejean. She claims to have lost the title of Miss USA because of her firm opposition to gay marriages. It’s possible: all the candidates were plastic girls, so, come on, they had to take on some issue suggested by the spirit of the times.)