Yesterday, the Senate voted for cloture, to end debate on the Respect for Marriage Act, the bill that would codify into federal law protections for marriage equality. Though just a procedural vote, it expectantly had substance. That’s because cloture passed with 12 Republican votes, two more than would be needed to stop a filibuster. And so, assuming the Republicans who voted for cloture will also vote for the bill (not a certain thing, but likely), it appears that the bill will pass in the Senate. And with a Democratic majority still in the House, it should pass there, as well. And President Biden has said he will sign it into law. While it’s amazing to see 12 Republicans vote for cloture (helped perhaps by some of them losing their race in the Midterms and therefore not having to face Republican voters in a primary), it’s equally amazing to see only 12 Republicans vote to push forward something that is currently, actually, already federal law (though only by Supreme Court ruling, hence the need for this bill because of the uncertainty what this court will do). In other words, 38 out of 50 Republican senators refused to vote to hear a debate on a bill that just confirms what is the law. But…it passed with 12 votes, and appears like this will become law. So, it maybe was really bad timing for actress Candance Cameron Bure, having her interview with the Wall Street Journal appear earlier in the same day where she discusses leaving the Hallmark Channel for the Great American Family Channel and saying that, while she will be making a slate of Christmas movies there in the future, one shouldn’t expect to see any gay marriages in any of the storylines. "I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core." Ah, ‘tis the season for Peace on Earth, goodwill to men. (Just not all men, in her world.) She also added that “My heart wants to tell stories that have more meaning and purpose and depth behind them. I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.” But then, she might want to clear that with the CEO of the company first. That’s because Bill Abbott seems like he's only partly on board with the actress. "It's certainly the year 2022, so we're aware of the trends," he waffled in the article, leaving out the ahem, er, cough-cough, not seemingly wanting to offend anyone on any side, at least just yet. "There's no whiteboard that says, 'Yes, this' or 'No, we'll never go here.'” While that’s not an especially courageous stand, and he might well-decide on the “No, we’ll never go there” on married gay fictional characters, it seems like he knows we’re no longer living in 1931. Because gay people are now a trend. (So, congrats to all you gay couples being a trend!! It’s really cool when the law can be so hip.) Then again, whatever GAF (which weirdly sounds like it’s commenting on Ms. Cameron Bure's interview) decides, what I'm most wondering is what she will do if carolers in one of the movies she gets hired for are singing "Deck the Halls" and get to the line, "Now, we don our..." The good news for Great American Family is that they won’t have to spend any extra money to buy the song rights for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in any movie the actress performs in. That means she'll still be able to "make the Yuletide gay" without it being too gay. On the other hand, despite his waffling on the issue, Mr. Abbott seems a wee bit more disingenuous when he explains that his channel’s formula is “soft faith,” what the article says he calls a “Christian message” that “is there for viewers who are looking for it but doesn’t aim to proselytize.” But since Ms. Cameron Bure explains her move to the GAF channel is specifically because the people behind it “were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment,” that seems its soft core, chewy nugget center is much more hardcore. To be clear, any channel has the right to put on whatever programming it likes. There are religious channels throughout cable TV. At issue here is not that. It’s how in the season of brotherly love, Ms. Cameron Bure chose to pontificate by cutting out the “brother” part. (Not to mention the “love” part.) For what it’s worth, I did a little research, although exact, current information is hard to find. On the good side, the Great American Family channel she went to from Hallmark appears to be growing its audience. At the moment, though, it still has a very long ways to grow, being ranked #69 among all cable channels with 145,000 viewers in primetime, for a less than great American .05 rating. Meanwhile, Hallmark Channel which she left (and, make no mistake, has a pretty strong Christian-right pedigree, though is probably heathen compared to GAF) is the #10 rated cable channels with 1.1 million primetime viewers. (It’s companion Hallmark Movies & Mystery channel also makes Christmas movies among its regular fare and is ranked #21 with around 450,000 viewers in primetime.) So, clearly, having a large audience to watch your small-minded views was not a major priority for Ms. Cameron Bure. In some ways, a person gets points preferring to stick close to one’s personal beliefs and rather than have a huge platform, be a big fish in a little puddle. And who knows, GAF may indeed grow in popularity, as it’s been doing and spending money signing other recognizable actors. Though the risk is that there may be a ceiling to that because the formula Candance Cameron Bure wants doesn’t appear to fit in with the world’s, well… trend. It's also worth recalling her saying that that formula she embraces is about “traditional marriage,” which is a convenient and oft-used phrase. But if "traditional marriage" is our benchmark, it's worth going back in history – which, after all, is the very core of tradition – to the days of the Roman Empire. It’s those days, it was illegal to marry an actor. (Really.) So, as far as truly traditional marriage goes, Ms. Cameron-Bure herself would have been out of luck. (In fairness, I believe this was B.C., so I'm not sure if Jesus fixed this in the New Testament and OK'd marrying actors somewhere in the pages.) No word, too, if GAF plans to make any holiday movies -- or any movies at all -- with Jewish characters, whose tradition of marriage (and tradition, period) far, far-predates that of Ms. Cameron-Bure's guidelines. Though to be fair, her Lord and Savior was Jewish. So, maybe we’ll be getting a spate of Hanukkah tales! Whether Candance Cameron Bure will be appearing in them remains to be seen, since I’m not sure how they would fit in with her concept of a Great American Family. But then, if you’re going to call yourself “Great American Family,” I’d think you’d at least have the decency to include all members of the family. And for that matter, if you want to show your disdain for United States law that protects the civil rights and liberties of everyone, no matter if expressing that disdain is your own right, it’s probably a very embarrassing idea to call yourself “Great Americans.” Which brings us back to the start, and the Senate on the edge of passing the Respect for Marriage Act. Voted on by enough great Americans that it looks like it will become codified federal law and not only a Supreme Court ruling. Signed by President Joe Biden. Joy to the world.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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