The Prairie State Report noted yesterday that Illinois GOP chair Pat Brady claimed History’s side when he came out in support of Same Sex Marriage.  Pat’s position not just his own, but History’s backing him up too.

And today I read The Daily Herald’s Editorial board advised the House to join the Goddess too: Editorial: Time for state House to join tide of history on rights.

An odd invocation of the Goddess of History: Clio; from folks concerned about the mixing of religion and politics.  A sadly ignorant invocation because the Goddess takes notes; not sides.  She’s the Goddess of those who write History. She holds a book in the picture at left. She’s not telling anyone what to do.

Clio doesn’t push the flow or ebbs and tides of events.  We do that.  History’s the sum of our thoughts and actions. We direct it.  Not the good Goddess, and as a devotee of her, I’m betting she’s put-off when we shove our work onto her.

Historians will judge Pat Brady, The Daily Herald, and Illinois when it comes to Same-Sex Marriage.  I don’t know that outcome yet.

I can recall a Radical-left that gave us a Sexual  Revolution not so long ago, telling us Marriage was a sort of slavery.  An institution Radicals thought History would destroy.  (Clio has a sense of humor you see.  She can throw our ideas back at us.)

We need tests for policy, not great forces coincidentally on our side.  Hubert Humphrey once suggested this one,

“It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped,”

Pat Brady and The Daily Herald would better evaluate their support for Same Sex Marriage under the lenses of Humphrey’s moral test.  How would SSM serve those most vulnerable in Illinois?

I’m guessing at best SSM’s indifferent.  At worse it aggravates the already troubled and stressed institution of family.

History doesn’t side.  History judges. The test will not be trivial.  We should be concerned with consequences of what we wrought; not who’s on our side.

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