No, really, that’s what she said. The exact statement was “I want to see the president evolve [on same-sex marriage] because I believe that is right; marriage equality is morally right…” – with the implication being that anybody who does not support same-sex marriage is not, ah, fully evolved.

Funny thing about that.

That 28/62 breakdown from Pew dates from February 2012, and it’s not particularly different from the last time Pew surveyed the field in 2011. It is also no accident that the administration finally decided to move in 2010 on ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: African-American support for the measure was dropping like a stone. God only knows what the numbers would be now on that question if it was still being surveyed.

But let that pass to the side for a moment: let’s instead look at what Elizabeth Warren just said there*. A white liberal academic with a potential (and justified!) grudge against the current Presidential administration that threw her under the bus came out recently insinuating that the President of the United States – who happens to be black, mind you – is insufficiently evolved. This kind of commentary is, of course, a drearily familiar one to anybody who knows something about the history of racial relations in the USA: African-Americans – who, by the way, share the President’s public disapproval of same-sex marriage, and would thus likely be included in Warren’s call for evolution – have long had to endure the slur that they were not as human as white people. Not as… evolved, if I may make the point blatantly obvious.

And this is the candidate that Massachusetts Democrats are apparently going to pick to face Scott Brown in the general election? Someone who cannot even follow the same set of verbal and rhetorical rules that they (usually shrilly) expect the rest of us to follow?

Um. Thank you?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Please note that the aforementioned rules explicitly note that certain words and terms may not be co-opted by the majority even if those terms are used by members of minority groups for the purposes of self-description. Subjective, of course, but then speech codes typically are. So… if intimating that African-Americans are not as fully evolved as white people is now acceptable discourse, then Elizabeth Warren and the rest of the progressive movement should say so. Explicitly. And aggressively defend any conservatives who might end up straying into the same rhetorical minefield. What’s that, they don’t want to do that? Well, they can at least live up to their own set of rules, then.

*And let me note for the record that I personally happen to support passing same-sex marriage legislation at the state level, with full, reasonable respect given to concerns about federalism and individual conscience. I mention this solely for the purposes of full disclosure.