Moderatism, Same-Sex "Marriage", Grayness

The Illinois state primary election is tomorrow, and in lieu of that, I've been doing my civic duty and researching all the candidates. I was originally planning on voting Republican just to support a certain candidate, but after he dropped out, I decided to vote Democrat. It was a difficult decision to make. I don't really identify as Republican or Democrat, left or right; I would consider myself an independent moderate centrist. I understand primaries are set up to choose a party's candidate, but I always have a hard time voting in them because as a moderate, I'm not always in favor of one party's policies over another.

If you are overly curious about the candidates I like, here is a Twitter list of the Democrats I am endorsing: @ctrejo86/illinois-cook-etc-2010

The reason I started writing this post, was mainly because I found something in my political research that I thought was beautiful. It all started when I thought I would take a look at the Green Party's candidate for governor. I dismissed the idea of possibly voting green as soon as I opened the webpage, but I did some exploring and I came across something that stopped me in my tracks. Below is a direct quote from the issues section of Rich Whitney's campaign site:

Do you support same sex-marriage?
The short answer is yes, I would support and sign any legislation that gives same-sex partners the same rights and privileges as different-sex partners. My actual personal preference would be to get government out of the "marriage" business altogether. In a perfect world, the government would only recognize "civil unions" for everyone -- gay and straight -- and "marriage" would be the word strictly used to describe religious ceremonies, not state-sanctioned contractual personal relationship. But if I can't accomplish that, I have no problem just supporting "marriage" for all, on an equal basis. ( http://whitneyforgov.org)

The reason this stopped me is because he has managed to communicate my thoughts in a way that I never could have. The "issue" is a very complicated one, and I tend to avoid discussing my view on it, because in my experience, people jump to conclusions before you even finish your first sentence. I recognize that when I share my views, I try to avoid saying the wrong things so much to the point that it becomes hard to follow. I love Mr. Whitney's answer because it is short, succinct, exactly what I believe, and it falls into place on a spectrum that is often ignored by society. So often people choose to look at an issue as if it were only in black and white, when the reality is that life is not that simple. By choosing to look at the world in terms of left and right, good and evil, right and wrong, yes and no, we fail to see the intricacies and complexities of the universe around us.

People may judge and say that I'm indecisive or that I over-complicate a simple thing, but when has life ever been simple? I won't apologize for living my life in shades of gray.