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In not quite breaking news, GOP remains at odds with LGBT Americans, Raymond Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, writes that:
“It’s been a year since the Republican Party pledged to be more inclusive, but all it has done is highlight that the GOP continues to stand at odds with the values and priorities of LGBT Americans.”
Buckley’s op-ed in the Washington Blade was perhaps a sop to counter-balance the Blade‘s running a profile of Dan Innis, the openly gay Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire. But it’s interesting that the Wall Street Journal, on the same date, ran GOP Wrestles With Its Stance on Gay Marriage (subscriber firewall), noting:
But in a half-dozen state legislatures controlled by the GOP, bills allowing businesses to refuse services for gay weddings are dead or on hold. In Illinois, three Republicans who voted to allow gay marriage in their state won primaries this month, despite opposition from social conservatives, preliminary results showed. … As candidates, both Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez opposed gay marriage. Recently, they said they wouldn’t fight court decisions in their states. … In Massachusetts, former state Sen. Richard Tisei introduced his husband at a speech this month and then accused the Republican Party of being “stuck in the 19th century” for not supporting marriage rights for gays. Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego city councilor now running for a House seat, ran a TV ad that includes footage of him holding hands with his male partner.
Small steps, to be sure. But Buckley’s assertion that the GOP has and will do nothing to evolve its position is partisan hackery that seeks the objective (the GOP remaining as anti-gay as it’s ever been) that it appears to be condemning. [Added: Yes, those who seek to defeat openly gay GOP candidates such as Innis are working to ensure that the GOP doesn’t change.]
More. And those who say social conservatives will not let the GOP change don’t see that religious right traditionalists are already moving to accept their defeat as they negotiate the terms of surrender (that’s not original to me; it’s been on the blogosphere but it’s a good line). As the Washington Examiner takes note, prominent “family values” advocates’:
fallback position — there’s no other way to describe it — is to insist that once the marriage fight is lost, the beliefs of Americans who oppose homosexual marriage on religious grounds be respected. … [The position of Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention] fits perfectly with a recent assessment by the Washington Examiner‘s Tim Carney: “Conservatives see religious liberty arguments as the last redoubt in the culture war: You guys won your gay marriages, permissive abortion laws, taxpayer-subsidized birth control, and divorce-on-demand; let us just live our lives according to our own consciences.”
43 Comments for “Small Steps Forward Are Still Steps Forward”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Buckley’s assertion that the GOP has and will do nothing to evolve its position is partisan hackery that seeks the objective (the GOP remaining as anti-gay as it’s ever been) that it appears to be condemning.
Buckley’s article does not address the question of whether or not the Republican will do nothing to evolve its position. Hid article speaks only to the last year. What he does is inject a dose of reality into the happy talk (see the Atlantic’s rather gushing and strange article, the subject of the post “Coming Around”, titled “Republicans Are Driving the Momentum for Gay Marriage for an example), noting that in the year since the Priebus study, the party has not shifted course in by any meaningful measuring stick.
Buckley is a political professional. Political professionals know that the change in opinion on gays and lesbians among Republicans (as well as independents and Democrats) is real and will stick. From the Christian Science Monitor article “Poll finds broad, rapid shift among Americans toward gay marriage“:
Looking forward, the question is how and how quickly attitudinal change among Republicans will translate into a change in political position among elected officials.
Everyone (even Stephen, although he doesn’t talk about it, preferring to blame the problem on “progressive” gays and lesbians who somehow hold the Republican Party in thrall) knows the problem underlying the question of “how soon”: In most of the country, the party’s institutional structure and primary system is dominated by militant social conservatives and hard-core Tea Party adherents.
The “Teavangelists” (if you will) block change in the Republican Party like an indigestible dumpling. Because they are entrenched in local and often state parties, and turn out in Republican primaries in higher numbers than Republicans whose attitudes have changed, the Teavangelists have largely controlled the party’s nominating process and will continue to have undue influence in the party for several more election cycles, and probably beyond that.
The Republican Party cannot shed social conservatives, because although their percentage nationally will dwindle to 30% or so in time, social conservatives are a critical part of the Republican base in general elections.
The party cannot, obviously, stick with a hard core anti-equality platform (for example, Tony Perkin’s 2012 platform language) for too many more years and expect to win national elections, but it also cannot win national elections if the Teavangelists abandon the party.
So the important question is how the Republican Party, institutionally, will deal with this fact.
Various Republican politicans are trying different approaches, none of which, so far, have gained much traction.
The Priebus approach (continue hard-core opposition, but sugarcoat it by adopting the Huckabee shuckabee) is dead. Younger conservatives, who (like their “progressive” counterparts) see equality as a civil rights issue, are not going to ignore the substance for the sugarcoating.
The DeMaio approach (quietly support equality but treat it as unimportant — “Carl believes Washington should be focused on balancing the budget, revitalizing the economy, and providing quality services to taxpayers – and leave the social issues out of our politics.” — seems to be gaining favor among Republican politicians. That’s a more realistic strategy than the Priebus approach, but sooner or later Republican politicians will have to vote on social issues and the lid will blow off the jar.
The Rand approach (“agree to disagree” about equality) doesn’t seem to me to be a workable solution because social conservatives (long burned by Republicans on abortion before gaining enough power to drive anti-abotion bills) are not going to be content with a “Yes, dear, we know that’s how you feel, but …” pat on the head while Republican politicians vote for equality.
So the Republican Party is going to have to find a substantive position on equality that works internally instead of trying to tiptoe around the problem with sugarcoating and dodges. And to make that work, the party is going to have to find something to give to the Teavangelists, something tangible enough to keep them in the party without unduly offending the Republicans who are coming around on equality issues and independents who are already there.
The “religious belief” laws were a transparent attempt to mollify the Teavangelists. Designed to discriminate against gays and lesbians alone, the laws offered comfort to the Teavangelists while giving cover to libertarians, who can supported the laws, although obviously discriminatory in intent and operation, because the laws furthered “liberty”. The strategy fell flat on its face because the business wing of the Republican Party stood in opposition and most pro-equality Republicans didn’t buy in.
So it is back to the drawing board. Other approaches will come and go, I suppose. I can’t predict how that’s going to work out.
I want the Republican Party to change, but (other than giving primary election campaign donations to Republican politicians like the Illinois 3, the Minnesota 4, and the Indiana 11 who put themselves at risk by voting pro-equality) there isn’t a lot I can do from the outside. It is frustrating, to be sure.
As one of the Democrats that Stephen loves to diss, I have worked hard to turn the Democratic Party and I am going to do all that I can do in the future to make good on Buckley’s last sentence:
That’s my job and the job of all of us who affiliated with the Democratic Party in any capacity. Republicans will have to change the Republican Party.
posted by Kosh III on
Every one of the states listed above are Democratic or leaning that way.
Here in the South, which is the stronghold of the GOP, they are if anything even worse than before.
Get out of your comfy blue enclave and come see what your conservative paradise really is.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If Stephen has any desire to get out of the Washington suburbs of Virginia and come see the state of the Republican Party in rural Wisconsin, my husband and I will put him up and I’ll introduce him to the Republican leadership of Adams, Columbia, Juneau or Sauk counties.
It would do him good, I think, to see how far gone most of these folks really are.
posted by Fritz Keppler on
If the leadership of the Republican Party should decide that the GOP should go the way of the Federalist Party, there is very little that non-Republicans can do about it.
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t think anyone has or would argue that small steps aren’t steps. So long as you’re moving forward that is progress. It’s not as if we went from the Stonewall Riots to full gay rights in a couple of months. And it’s not as if the Democratic Party didn’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming to support us. The watershed moment was Joe “Foot In Mouth” Biden’s comment in 2012. That led to Obama coming out for marriage equality (something I think everyone believes he was always for but was afraid of losing the election if he said so) and then followed just about everyone else who was going to (including some on the right, but almost exclusively those retired from politics). So I don’t think that’s in dispute. The problem for Republicans now is not that they are all bad on social issues. It’s that the ones who are bad are SO bad and so loud and so stupid about it that it makes them all look bad. As a Democrat I can’t but help but enjoy the Schadenfreude. It was frustrating to hear inane but effective slogans like “I’m for equal rights but not special rights”. What nonsense! But it gave cover to people who wanted to be bigots while pretending they were nothing of the sort. (And people like Bob Dole who wanted to pander to them.) The GOP has made it’s own mess. Nothing the extreme crowd is surprising to me but then I was raised in East Texas in this Teavangelical culture. What’s surprising to Republicans in the rest of the country is that anyone would let these morons anywhere near a microphone. Welcome to the internet age. Everything you ever said or did is going to come back to haunt you and no one has to wait for the lazy, overpaid media hacks to find it. We can just put it up on youtube and tweet the link.
If the mainstream wing of the GOP wants to save the party, they have a lot of work to do. I have no idea how they will do that and don’t actually have any interest in helping them since I’m a Democrat. I remember when Democrats had the same problem of constantly shooting themselves in the feet. (Oh wait, they STILL have that problem. #facepalm) If you want the party to change then do something about it and stop blaming it on Democrats. Really. Have you looked at the Democrats. If only they were capable of the plotting and scheming the right-wing attributes to them. As if. It’s the Keystone Cops!
posted by Doug on
If Stephen worked within the GOP half as much as he bitched about Democrats/Progressives, LGBT equality within the GOP would be a lot closer to the goal posts than the small steps he is praising.
posted by Jim Michaud on
Thanks Stephen for the explanation of the recent hiccup. I wondered what the hell was going on.
Now to the topic at hand. I believe there are two reasons why things are (finally) breaking our way. One is the 2012 election results. Obama voiced support for Marriage Equality and still won the election. 4 states voted our way and gave the NOM crowd a first-ever string of goose eggs. Voting for SSM stopped being poison. Notice how now, the GOP is queasy about putting this issue before the voters (Indiana, anyone?). In fact, it’s been absent on any ballot post-2012.
The other is, of course, our string of court victories. The legal precedents have been set and is growing exponentially. Our victories are now self reinforcing and feeding even further victories. More and more GLBT people are showing society that we weren’t the threat to America that the NOM crowd predicted. This turn of events is just what the soc cons feared. The GOP better wake up and fast. The purity police amongst them have stated publicly that they would rather lose on principle than be victorious. That attitude can only take you so far. The Republicans have won the popular vote for President only once since 1988. (1988! A freaking generation-plus ago!) If they don’t want to be sent to the dustbin of history, changes have to come and quickly. A LOT quicker than what it took the Democrats. 20 years in the wilderness for them (1968-1988). The Republicans: 22 years and counting. (1992-?). Rant over.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
And those who say social conservatives will not let the GOP change don’t see that religious right traditionalists are already moving to accept their defeat as they negotiate the terms of surrender (that’s not original to me; it’s been on the blogosphere but it’s a good line).
Uh, huh. Surrender. Jesus, have you been reading what these folks are actually saying?
As in “don’t say gay” laws in our public schools, “religious liberty” exemptions to public accommodations laws as they apply to gays and lesbians but no one else, hacking away at equal treatment in the military, imp0sing restrictions on gay/lesbian adoption, and so on. Special rules after special rules, all aimed at blunting the Constitutional mandate that all citizens are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
That’s not called “surrender” where I come. Its called “resistance”.
At least that was what it used to be called in the wake of Brown v. Board. Now I guess its called “respecting the beliefs of social conservatives”.
Spin, spin, spin.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’m always surprised at how poorly Americans know the details of our own history. Brown v Board of Education was in 1954. My home town finally desegregated the schools in 1969. (A few students were allowed to attend vocation programs not offered at the “black” school the year before.) Many schools did not integrated until the early 1970s. It’s not as if Brown overnight solved the problem of segregated schools or that racists immediately acknowledged defeat.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A brief history of “<a href="http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance” in Virginia might help illuminate the past, and give us a hint of what we can expect in the future.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Same thing on compulsory pledge of allegiance and school prayer… do they not read or is it willful abnegation?
posted by Houndentenor on
Oy, and here comes the addendum.
Gay marriage WAS the fall-back position for the religious right. They realized after losing the Colorado 2 case and the sodomy case that they couldn’t get away with flat out animus towards gay people just going about their business. They decided that stopping marriage was a safe position and it seemed so at the time. Of course they didn’t calculate for how mean-spirited the anti-gay attacks would be over the issue or that in court their illogical nonsense would crumble under the most basic cross-examination. So now they’re losing marriage too.
Where is this “compromise” you seem to be suggesting? I don’t see any attempt on behalf of the religious right to stop fighting against marriage. Yes, some of the professional bigots are closing up shop but that’s because they have run out of money. Maggie Gallagher et al. haven’t had a change of heart. They just can’t raise money like they used to. I’m sure they’ll all find a new issue to use to grift mean-spirted people out of their social security checks. But I don’t see any evidence of a detente from the right on any gay issue. They are still fighting the marriage cases in courts, are they not? That’s not exactly a white flag. Where were their “consciences” when gay partners were locked out of the ICU while their significant other was dying? I’m not at all impressed by their “morals”. They offer no compassion or respect but want such from us?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Gay marriage WAS the fall-back position for the religious right. They realized after losing the Colorado 2 case and the sodomy case that they couldn’t get away with flat out animus towards gay people just going about their business
I’m just curious about who the social conservatives are dealing with as they “negotiate the terms of surrender”.
All I see is social conservatives drawing yet another line of resistance and threatening the Republican Party to mutiny the party doesn’t toe the line.
Stephen obviously has insider information to which the rest of us aren’t privy.
posted by Houndentenor on
It wasn’t the major gay rights groups that brought the marriage lawsuits. In fact they were opposed to those lawsuits (for fear we’d lose and be set back for decades if that happened). All the more reason to scoff at the idea that there is any gay leadership with whom one could negotiate. (Nor any real central leadership of the religious right either, for that matter.) Stephen may see a desire for a truce. I see a group of people acting victimized because they aren’t allowed to bully gay people without any repercussions (or even cheers from the public at large).
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I don’t think that anyone thinks that social conservatives are “negotiating” with gays and lesbians. The “negotiations”, if they are going on at all (which I doubt), are going on entirely within the Republican Party, focused on the price, in terms of future anti-equality legislation, that anti-equality social conservatives will extract from the Republican Party. Frankly, though, I think that the notion of “negotiating the terms of surrender” is a bunch of horse-hockey.
posted by Jorge on
Spin, spin, spin.
This topic’s subject strikes me as reading tea leaves after they have already been eaten and excreted. Oh, all right I’ll read that guy’s article.
The article doesn’t want to load.
Would it be acceptable for a Democratic political hack to write an article saying “GOP remains at odds with black Americans?” The two statements are no more or less accurate from each other.
Indeed it would.
And I take the headline in the same spirit: arrogant, uneducated, manipulative, or all three. I’d take it as insulting, but I’ve bigger fish to fry. The best revenge is to live well. My $2125 in contributions for the 2012 Republican primary was money well-spent. I even hear rumors that Condi Rice wants to make a comeback now. Someday soon, the neocons will be back, just you wait and see.
posted by Houndentenor on
Just what we need. Dr Rice who failed to act on intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning to hijack planes running for office. Like the current officeholders aren’t already an all time low for our country.
posted by Doug on
Not to mention violating the Geneva Convention on torture, a disgusting blot on the reputation of this country.
posted by Jorge on
Okay now you’re just making stuff up, Houndentenor.
I think we do need a Republican party that focuses on issues of national security and foreign policy. I wouldn’t object too much to a Republican party that focuses on issues of domestic well-being, as President Obama is doing and as President Bush hoped to do more of before the 9/11 attacks happened. People knock these issues of national unity and social justice, but they are at least concrete needs. Republicans who focus on those issues are more likely to ignore the petty concerns of most of the anti-gay right and look to the best interests of all Americans. It wouldn’t be a cureall but it would do a lot of good.
posted by Doug on
No, Houndentenor is not making things up. Not only did Dr. Rice fail to act on intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning an attack, Bush’s very first National Security meeting after the election, and well before 9/11, was to figure out a way to attach Iraq.
posted by Houndentenor on
I am most certainly not making things up. Dr Rice had an intelligence report that said that Al Qaeda was planning on hijacking planes and using them as missiles to attack the US. The only thing they didn’t know is where or when. Did she up airport security in the least? No. That’s incompetence and in most countries (and most administrations) she’d have been fired on 9/12/2001. Instead she was promoted to Secretary of State. Heck of a job there, Condi! You are obviously too young to remember this time as an adult. It was scary. My own relatives accused me of being a traitor for just asking why the UN weapons instructors hadn’t found any WMDs after many inspections. (Spoiler alert: because there weren’t any. It was a lie.) A NY Times reporter named Judy Miller wrote a story that was complete fabrication the day before VP Cheney was to go on the Sunday morning talk shows and quote those lies as if they were true (because they were printed in the “liberal” NY Times!). To me that’s treason. (For both Miller and Cheney.)
posted by Jorge on
The only thing they didn’t know is where or when.
That’s a pretty big known unknown, Mr. Houndentenor.
Even so, I need a source, else I’ll maintain my previous view that the correct scapegoat was John Ashcroft, and that he and other members of the administration were held accountable by Congress before, with, and after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report (nope, I’ve never read it). I’m certainly not persuaded enough to acknowledge your even more bizarre accusation at the end.
That’s incompetence and in most countries (and most administrations) she’d have been fired on 9/12/2001.
I resent what you are doing here. You are ommitting any exploration or consideration of what she did do and what her rationale was. In so doing you are taking a professional disagreement about best national security practice and accusing National Security Advisor Rice of not doing her job. I demand to know on what grounds you are qualifed to make a such a judgment. What is the source of your information? What were the alternative approaches Condi Rice actually took? And and why, after due consideration of the views of other counterterrorism experts, do you believe think her decision on which counterterrorism method to use was so mismatched to the information she received that her decision reflected dereliction or incompetence?
How dare you claim without a shred of evidence or analysis, indeed I’d wager in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, that it was obvious the correct scapegoat was Condi Rice that she should have been fired on 9/12/01.
posted by Jorge on
Oh, here’s some other unknowns. Not just were and when al-Qaida was planning to hijack planes.
Where and when al-Qaida was in the country. If I remember correctly, the method of terrorist prevention this country tried to use was focused on keeping people out of the country and locating potential terrorists if they had gotten in.
posted by Houndentenor on
Increasing airport security might have helped. We’ll never know since they didn’t even try. Note: in late 1999 the Clinton administration increased airport security on less frightening intelligence. It’s not as if there were nothing that could be done. Rice is incompetent. I wouldn’t hire her for any job or ever vote for her.
posted by Jorge on
Hmm.
Sorry, I cannot agree. It was Ashcroft’s fault.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney: “Conservatives see religious liberty arguments as the last redoubt in the culture war: You guys won your gay marriages, permissive abortion laws, taxpayer-subsidized birth control, and divorce-on-demand; let us just live our lives according to our own consciences.”
I don’t think that anyone has a problem with that, and, frankly, it isn’t all that hard to do. Jews have been doing it in diaspora for several thousand years, holding true to Jewish values while living as a tiny minority among people who not only don’t share those values, but despise them. I do it. My fundamentalist neighbors do it — home schooling, living a life of Christian simplicity born of the conviction of their consciences. So do my close friends who are determined to leave as small a “footprint” on the earth as possible, considering the environmental impact of everything that they do. Lots of people live according to their own consciences.
Nothing is stopping conservatives from living according to their own consciences. But living according to their own consciences is not all the social conservatives want to do.
Conservative Christians want to impose the dictates of their conscience on the society as a whole, and, if that is not possible, then to be exempted from laws of general application that offend their religious conscience.
That is quite a different thing than living according to your own conscience.
To look at this from a different perspective, the difference between “living according to their own consciences” and seeking to do what conservative Christians want to do is the difference between AA and the Temperance movement.
AA focuses exclusively on helping alcoholics become and stay sober in a world awash with alcohol. AA does not demand that society as a whole give up alcohol, or involve itself in poltical causes. AA doesn’t seek laws making the culture more comfortable for alcoholics. AA members are a model of “living according to their own consciences”, focusing on sobriety, living responsibly, living life on life’s terms, and helping others to live in sobriety.
Contrast AA with the Temperance movement. The Temperance movement focused on “living according to their own consciences”, to be sure, but went much further. The Temperance movement tried to impose its values on society as a whole, imposing temperance if you will, ultimately resulting in Prohibition. The Temperance movement did what conservative Christians are trying to do, and the end result was a train wreck.
I think that contrast is an apt one as we think about conservative Christians and their demands.
posted by Jimmy on
They want to live according to their consciences. I want to live according to mine. She wants to live according to hers. The thing is, they take for themselves a right they will not afford to me or her. They think abortion is murder. I believe we each have a fundamental right to our own physical autonomy. No one, especially the state, may have any sovereignty over my, or her, or his physical body. That is my basis for being against the death penalty. A woman must have final say as to what happens with her body. Forcing her to allow another person to gestate inside of her, against her will, is not just in my value system. Any man would claim the same right regarding his own body.
The idea of the ‘persecuted hegemon’ is interesting, and I think it is the dilemma social conservatives and the rumored to be threatened straight white male. I wonder if conservatives even consider hegemony and marginalization in terms other than – me good/you bad.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Bishop Gene Robinson does a masterful take-down of the whole “religious liberty” / “Christians are victims” routine in this column:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/30/religious-conservatives-are-the-new-minority-but-they-re-not-victims.html
“But I have to ask: are religious conservatives confusing the pain of finding oneself “suddenly” in the minority with actually being a victim? Both feel uncomfortable, even painful, and are fraught with anxiety. But they’re very different.”
posted by Lori Heine on
As a longtime member of A.A., I have to say that’s a brilliant analogy. I intend to use it whenever the opportunity arises.
People in the program who try to force temperance on those outside of it are quickly disabused of the notion that it’s our mission to run around with axes smashing stills. Still less that we have any right to insist Prohibition be reinstated.
posted by Jorge on
The Temperance movement did what conservative Christians are trying to do, and the end result was a train wreck.
They were right, though. It’s just that train wrecks are worse.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney: But in a half-dozen state legislatures controlled by the GOP, bills allowing businesses to refuse services for gay weddings are dead or on hold.
Mississippi’s legislature passed a revised version Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act yesterday. The bill was revised to remove a number of the more egregious provisions.
The bill passes two of the three “equal means equal” tests. Because the bill applies to any and all laws of the State of Mississippi, it is issue-neutral and class-neutral. However, the law does not meet the religion-neutral test; it protects “sincerely held religious belief” but not personal conscience of a non-religious nature.
posted by Houndentenor on
How exactly will courts differentiate between “sincere” and insincere religious beliefs?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
How exactly will courts differentiate between “sincere” and insincere religious beliefs?
The question comes up all the time in employment law cases, and came up frequently in conscientious objection cases during the Vietnam era.
Government and/or the courts can look into the factualquestion of whether or not the person asserting the belief has acted in a way that is consistent with the belief in other areas. If the person does, then the courts are likely to find that the belief is “sincerely held”; if the person does not, then the courts are likely to find to the contrary.
The nature of the belief or its validity is not a question that courts or government officials can address under the Constitution, because to do so would be to violate the Establishment clause. As far as the Constitution is concerned, there is no difference between a sincerely held belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and a sincerely held belief in Jesus.
The more interesting question is how corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies and other non-human business entities develop and hold sincere religious beliefs.
If that issue arises, I’ll be very curious to see how it is handled by the courts.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Trying to decide:
Obamacare birth control insurance provisions are an affront to religious liberty. – Hobby Lobby
Retirement plans investing in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions… with large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k). – Hobby Lobby
posted by Doug on
A disgusting show of hypocrisy and pretty much proves that Hobby Lobby is morally bankrupt.
posted by Houndentenor on
Obviously Hobby Lobby’s owners are concerned about their “morals” when they are having to spend money. When it comes to making money from investments or saving money by buying products made by Chinese slave labor where (in the factories, because that’s how it’s done there) women are forced to have abortions if they have already had one child, they are just fine and dandy with that. It’s not so much bankrupt as standard issue Evangelical hypocrisy.
Meanwhile corporate officers are freaking out that Hobby Lobby will win and the separation between the corporation and its officers and shareholders will be weakened leaving them open to being personally sued. This decision will have more repercussions than just whether or not birth control has to be offered as part of a health care plan.
posted by Kosh III on
“corporate officers are freaking out …. leaving them open to being personally sued. ”
I don’t believe an amoral corporation can be “religious” but I see no problem with holding the officers and board personally responsible for crimes as, for instance, the crashing of the economy by Wall Street and banking crooks like Chase’s Jamie Dimon, the people at BofA who committed massive fraud (robo-signing) and got away with it, Tony Hayward and the other murderers of BP who also got away with it, and the list goes on.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Part of the problem is that the RNC and much of the GOP leadership is still either pandering to the “religious right” or hoping that the entire issue will go away — as one former GOP president once remarked.
If you live/spend a good amount of time in say the Midwest — especially outside of the urban centers — you will see that frankly very little within the GOP seems to be changing.
What we do see is that in States or districts are tend to be socially liberal (blue or purple leaning) to begin with, the GOP is sort of tolerating the existence of a few ‘moderate’ Republicans. This is basically old news.
posted by Lori Heine on
If we still studied history, and familiarized ourselves with basic human nature, this “old news” might actually begin to make some sense.
I won’t bring on your hyperventilation by mentioning the other “L” word. I really don’t believe my ideas are particularly confined to anything ever written by Ayn Rand. Let’s use a different word, and divorce concept from cult of personality. How about “Rhubarb?” Please don’t tell me you’ve ever dated any of those.
The Rhubarbs’ observations about how members of our species interact with each other do tend to be spot-on. Even granting that if they “took power,” the Apocalypse would be at our doors, they have some useful things to add to the discussion.
This is not Gay Patriot. I trust the screaming hordes will not descend upon me. Pray let us please remember ourselves.
Arguing over which “side” to trust with vastly more power than human beings have ever demonstrated they can handle is an exercise not only in futility, but abject idiocy. The Republicans have sold their souls to the social right because their souls were, first of all, for sale. The Democrats have sold themselves to a different cartel of thugs, but to thugs, nonetheless.
Let’s not squabble endlessly over whether to trust the Crips or the Bloods. The Visigoths or the Vandals. We can trust exactly none of them. People who seek power for its own sake may start out with the shiniest of intentions, but power reigns alongside money as the most universally corruptive of forces.
Once they get enough of it, they decide they’ve never had enough — and they want more, more, more and more. To attempt to localize the problem to merely being that “the religious right” is drunk on power is to miss the point. We can smash that still, and they will build another.
posted by Doug on
Yes, the GOP has sold it’s soul to the social right wing. I’m not sure which ‘thugs’, as you say, the progressive/left has sold it’s soul to. One thing I do know is that were it not for the hard work done by many on the progressive/left the LGBT community would still be in the hinterlands with no power, no voice, no rights and still in the DSM as a diagnosable mental illness.
posted by Lori Heine on
You used an important word, and I wonder if you understand its significance: many. If it were not for the hard work done by MANY. I’m not dissing one “team” to puff another. You need not rush to defend your team.
Many people worked together to achieve the goal of greater acceptance for LGBT Americans. Very powerful people followed where we led. That is the way it should work, and the only way it really can.
You might want to examine your reflexive impulse to defend the team — as if, when the powerful are attacked, the whole team must be indicted. We’ve been trained to do that, but perhaps we need to realize that the powerful are big enough to answer for themselves.
posted by Doug on
I was NOT defending MY team. I have no team, I’ve voted left and I’ve voted right. I was trying to respond to your apparent broad brush that since both have been bought and sold they are both somehow tarnished equally and I do not believe that is true with regards to LGBT rights.
posted by Lori Heine on
I’m not trying to keep score, because I don’t consider it a game.
The point is not whether both sides are equally tarnished. The point is that power is an equal-opportunity corruptor. All power needs to be held in check by the people over whom it is wielded. Leaders on the left are as capable of being seduced by power as are those on the right.
No scoreboard is needed to see this, nor does the fact that one side has been worse to us than the other mitigate our need to keep a watch on them both.