Apparently very quietly and mostly into your lap. Reading the comments under the video clip was interesting. Seems some people thought bringing it up went too far because they “watch Ellen because she’s funny, not to find out her politics” (and how dare a talk show host bring up politics while interviewing a politician?). Most of the negative responses boiled down to this: “It was uncomfortable to watch.” And that’s not surprising. It’s easy to attack gay people when they are some nebulous abstract group. Its a very different thing to do so when you’re face to face with a real, living, breathing, and outright likable gay person. When you put a human face on the issue, it forces you to recognize that you are intentionally and seriously harming people for no reason. Because most of us like to think of ourselves as good people, the recognition that we are doing something so evil is hard to take.

Would McCain have voiced his opinion with such visible shame were he giving a speech to a rally of bigots? Not likely. It could be most any gay person, but in this case it was Ellen who acted as a mirror into McCain’s heart and it was pretty obvious he didn’t like what he was seeing. Apparently, many of the “uncomfortable” viewers also didn’t like what they saw of themselves in that particular mirror. If I’d been Ellen, I’d have polished the mirror a bit more. I wouldn’t have allowed any of this “we disagree” crap. I’d have asked McCain to state directly to my face the words “You don’t deserve the same civil rights that I do.”

As a bit of an aside, McCain’s response is yet another reason that this just won’t be that big of an issue in the coming election. The Republican candidate’s position is really not all that different from the Democrats (and shame on the two Democratic candidates for that being the case). It’s hard to mobilize an army of voters on a topic you more or less agree with your opponents on.