“The wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,” he said.
In response to a question from Nicholas F.B. Smyth ’05—who was sporting a shirt supporting Kerry’s candidacy—on renouncing the use of “wedge” issues such as race and gay marriage, Mehlman said that he did not consider gay marriage a wedge issue but rather one of great importance to the American people.
Andy J. Frank ’05, the president of the Harvard College Democrats, said after the speech that he disagreed with Mehlman’s description of the gay marriage question.
“Gay marriage is a huge wedge issue and pretending that it is not an issue is simply not true,” Frank said.
But Scogin suggested that Bush should use the election as an opportunity to initiate a public discussion on gay marriage.
“I think part of the outrage with what happened in Massachusetts with the Supreme Court decision was that it occurred before a public dialogue could take place,” he said. “So with the campaign obviously Kerry and Bush have different views on gay marriage and I think the upcoming election will provide a good platform by which to debate those differences.”