Tiptoe Through the Two Lips

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This post was written by guest blogger Marc Lallanilla.)

Both Obama and McCain are tiptoeing around the issue of gay marriage, according to an AP news story. This comes as no surprise; nobody wants to risk openly offending middle America or gay and lesbian voters.

Obama is a little cagey on the whole issue, supporting civil unions and equal rights but not gay marriage -- though he would stop short of banning gay marriage. Thanks, Barack -- sort of.

McCain, predictably enough, is against anything gay, and says that gay marriage is an issue for individual states to decide. No word from McCain on a married gay couple who move from, say, Massachusetts to Georgia. I guess their marriage would be annulled. Thanks for nothing, John.

Clearly, gay marriage has become the third rail of this election. Touch it and you die, no matter which side of the track you're on.

But gay marriage is really just one of those red-hot issues that create more heat than light. Explosive topics like abortion, gay marriage and evolution are made-for-TV emotional arguments that Machiavellians like Karl Rove keep hypeing to distract us from what's really important: the economy is in the crapper, the planet is melting, and people are dying from lack of health care.

America, I fear, is becoming a second-tier nation. Like Poland, we will still have an economy, but not a robust or influential one. Like Argentina, we will have airports, bridges and roads, but our WWII-era infrastructure will keep collapsing. Like the Phillippines, we will have manufacturing and technology, but other nations are outpacing us in telecommunications, medicine, transportation, and engineering.

Welcome to the 21st century, America. We have a seat for you -- at the back of the bus.