New GOP Party Chair Michael Steele says some interesting things-certainly not all bad-about his party and gays in his GQ interview. Some excerpts (the magazine left in the "ums" and used "gonna" for "going," which is not standard journalistic practice but serves to make Steele seem less articulate):
On gay marriage: "I have been, um, supportive of a lot of my friends who are gay in some of the core things that they believe are important to them....the ability to be able to share in the information of your partner, to have the ability to-particularly in times of crisis-to manage their affairs and to help them through that as others-you know, as family members or others-would be able to do. I just draw the line at the gay marriage....[F]rom my faith tradition and upbringing, I believe that marriage-that institution, the sanctity of it-is reserved for a man and a woman. That's just my view. And I'm not gonna jump up and down and beat people upside the head about it, and tell gays that they're wrong for wanting to aspire to that, and all of that craziness. That's why I believe that the states should have an opportunity to address that issue."
On a federal constitutional amendment: "I don't like mucking around with the Constitution.... I think that the states are the best laboratory, the best place for those decisions to be made, because they will then reflect the majority of the community in which the issue is raised. And that's exactly what a republic is all about."
On whether people choose to be gay, as the anti-gay right claims: "Oh, no. I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there's a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can't simply say, oh, like, 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay.' It's like saying, 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being black.'"
Steele has made his share of missteps as he tries to move his party in a somewhat broader direction. He's been criticized by the right for his moderation on some issues (he has said he's personally anti-abortion but it should remain an indivdiual choice), and for his criticism of Rush Limbaugh's bombast (about which he was forced to recant), while attacked from the left (and mocked, of course, on Saturday Night Live) for being a black Republican. Still, the level of vitriol directed at him from left and right indicates he may be trying to do something positive, at least on the social issues front.
(For a contrary, far more negative assessment, see James Kirchick's "Rusted Steele." For its part, the Log Cabin Republicans welcomed Steele's appointment but chided him for saying his party would not support federal recognition of civil unions.)
13 Comments for “Michael Steele in the Lion’s Den”
posted by Bobby on
So? The guy has perfect views, “I may not like what you do but I’m gonna let you do it.” The problem with progressives is they don’t just want freedom, they want people to celebrate their choices.
“Yay! You’re having an abortion! Good for you!”
posted by BobN on
“New GOP Party Chair Michael Steele says some interesting things”
The most interesting thing about them is how diametrically opposed they are to other things he’s said. Mind you, I prefer the relatively gay-benign Steele to the that’s-just-crazy Steele of a few days earlier. I suspect this is the real Steele. The poor man is toast.
As to the complaint about the “um”s and “gonna”s, get used to them. Since the media was accused of bias for presenting Palin’s words as they cascaded from her lips, they’re going to do this for everybody now. No more cleaning up slightly messy speech. You have no one to blame but other “conservatives” who wouldn’t accept the fact that she can be extraordinarily incoherent.
posted by John Howard on
I think he would support Civil Unions if they were not “marriage in all but name”, if they were not “stepping stones” to marriage, and if they strengthened the public’s understanding of the unique essence of marriage. I think he would support CU’s if it were part of a compromise that stopped same-sex marriage in states that allow it.
He is wrong about “state’s rights”, no state should be allowed to either prohibit or insurmountably restrict a marriage from conceiving children together with their own genes. That’s a basic civil right of man. Also, no state should allow anyone to attempt to create a person through any means other than joining a man and a woman’s unmodified gametes.
posted by Rob on
I think he would support Civil Unions if they were not “marriage in all but name”, if they were not “stepping stones” to marriage, and if they strengthened the public’s understanding of the unique essence of marriage. I think he would support CU’s if it were part of a compromise that stopped same-sex marriage in states that allow it.
LOL You mean like in France where it underminded marriage because opposite-sex couples demanded the ‘lite’ package same-sex couples were getting? I find it ironic that it’s people like you that is actually underminding marriage. Based on your previous posts, I assume that you’re a neo-Luddite of the Francis Fukuyama mold, am I not correct?
posted by Jorge on
That “I have gay friends” line was interesting and empathetic when George W. Bush said it, but it’s become an old and worn phrase by now.
You know, a lot of gays believe that if only more people knew people who were gay, then people’s views might change. And there’s evidence for this, but it won’t be a complete 360, it seems.
I know people who are black, and am even friendly with some people who are black. Have they modified my views on racial issues? Well, yes. It’s also true that on some issues the black people I’ve met have inadvertently convinced me to become a hard-liner. You can’t bow to charges of bigotry if they’re false. Only bias.
posted by John Howard on
Rob, if a man and a woman got a CU of the kind I propose, they would get all the rights of marriage except the right to conceive together and therefore the right to do things that might result in them conceiving together, as well as all the obligations of marriage and be beholden to the same laws about divorce and abandonment and so forth. So I don’t know why any hetero couple that could marry would prefer to get the version that didn’t protect their conception rights, since there’d be nothing “lite” about it in terms of obligations. Only couples that are forbidden to conceive together would choose CU’s, because they are forbidden marriage.
posted by Rob on
Rob, if a man and a woman got a CU of the kind I propose, they would get all the rights of marriage except the right to conceive together and therefore the right to do things that might result in them conceiving together, as well as all the obligations of marriage and be beholden to the same laws about divorce and abandonment and so forth. So I don’t know why any hetero couple that could marry would prefer to get the version that didn’t protect their conception rights, since there’d be nothing “lite” about it in terms of obligations. Only couples that are forbidden to conceive together would choose CU’s, because they are forbidden marriage.
What? So you’d restrict everyone’s reproductive rights actively and selectively permit couples to procreate where it’s best for society? Sounds like a very familiar idea.
posted by John Howard on
The only restriction would be to use our own unmodified gametes, so as to preserve the right to use our own unmodified gametes. Allowing people to conceive with someone of their same sex means allowing the use of modified gametes, and that equates the right to use modified gametes with using unmodified gametes, effectively negating the right to use unmmodified gametes. It would be a supportable basis to restrict everyone’s reproductive rights, like being siblings or father-daughter or already being married to someone else are.
posted by Rob on
The only restriction would be to use our own unmodified gametes, so as to preserve the right to use our own unmodified gametes. Allowing people to conceive with someone of their same sex means allowing the use of modified gametes, and that equates the right to use modified gametes with using unmodified gametes, effectively negating the right to use unmmodified gametes. It would be a supportable basis to restrict everyone’s reproductive rights, like being siblings or father-daughter or already being married to someone else are.
And how does using modifed gametes or genomes encroach upon the right for couples to use unmodifed gametes? What you’re advocting is itself an encroachment upon reproductive rights, even if the methods are somewhat unorthodox.
posted by John Howard on
And how does using modifed gametes or genomes encroach upon the right for couples to use unmodifed gametes?
By equating them. If the right to conceive with someone of the same sex is equal to the right to conceive with someone of the same sex, then the right to use modified gametes is equal to the right to the right to use unmodified gametes, and therefore the right to use unmodified gametes has been effectively negated because the right to procreate is equal whether a person is required to use modified gametes or allowed to use unmodified gametes. It effectively says “you still have the equal right to procreate that you used to have, you just have to use these screened, modified, improved genes.” And even if people are still allowed to use their unmodified gametes, they’ll be pressured into using modified gametes to the point where they won’t want to use their unmodified gametes, effectively negating their right to use their own unmodified gametes even if they aren’t outright prohibited from doing it.
I wouldn’t call this an encroachment on reproductive rights, because 1) using modified gametes has never been done (so it’s not encroaching on anything that people actually do), and 2) it’s not even reproduction, since it doesn’t reproduce anyone (or any couple), it creates a person from genes that do not represent anyone. So while it certainly would prohibit people from creating people in a way might soon be attempted to create people, it doesn’t encroach on anyone’s reproductive rights. By limiting the creation of people to a man and a woman’s unmodified gametes, it preserves everyone’s reproductive rights by affirming that it is right for everyone to use their own genes to reproduce.
posted by John Howard on
oops, I meant “if the right to conceive with someone of the same sex is equated with the right to conceive with someone of the other sex” in that first sentence… Those should not be equated, one is a basic civil right of man, and one is certainly not!
posted by Rob on
By equating them. If the right to conceive with someone of the same sex is equal to the right to conceive with someone of the [other] sex, then the right to use modified gametes is equal to the right to the right to use unmodified gametes, and therefore the right to use unmodified gametes has been effectively negated because the right to procreate is equal whether a person is required to use modified gametes or allowed to use unmodified gametes. It effectively says “you still have the equal right to procreate that you used to have, you just have to use these screened, modified, improved genes.”
That’s a non squitur. So what if they’re ‘equal’ in rights? It still doesn’t deny the right of couples from procreating offspring with unmodified genomes.
And even if people are still allowed to use their unmodified gametes, they’ll be pressured into using modified gametes to the point where they won’t want to use their unmodified gametes, effectively negating their right to use their own unmodified gametes even if they aren’t outright prohibited from doing it.
Social pressure still doesn’t deny people their right and some will easily ignore it. I assume that ‘unmodified’ baseline humans would freely congregate into their own communities.
I wouldn’t call this an encroachment on reproductive rights, because 1) using modified gametes has never been done (so it’s not encroaching on anything that people actually do),
Now we do a U-turn, you’re the one who specifically said that it was an encroachment on reproductive rights. And just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean that it will not occur.
and 2) it’s not even reproduction, since it doesn’t reproduce anyone (or any couple), it creates a person from genes that do not represent anyone.
That’s another non-sequitur. It is undebatably reproduction, because a new nearbaseline human was created out of an existing genomic template, meaning also that the person does have the biological background of an individual or couple, even if that person was grown in an artificial womb. If a same-sex couple reproduce offspring our of their own genes, then it obviously ‘represent’ them.
So while it certainly would prohibit people from creating people in a way might soon be attempted to create people, it doesn’t encroach on anyone’s reproductive rights. By limiting the creation of people to a man and a woman’s unmodified gametes, it preserves everyone’s reproductive rights by affirming that it is right for everyone to use their own genes to reproduce.
See above about baselines.
posted by John Howard on
That’s a non squitur. So what if they’re ‘equal’ in rights? It still doesn’t deny the right of couples from procreating offspring with unmodified genomes.
Well, at first most people would still have the right to use their unmodified genes, true. I doubt we’d see any laws prohibiting people from using their unmodified or unscreened gametes very soon (twenty or thirty years, maybe), but there’d be coercion and pressure to use modified genes immediately (there already is pressure to use better genes, which is a major source of angst and depression). But when the public opinion shifted and people started to feel that no one should be allowed to create children with BRAC-1 cancer genes or with low intelligence genes, the argument that a person had the right to use their own genes would be countered by the point that the right is equal to the right to use modified genes and that the right to procreate is satisfied by using modified genes. And it would be a winning argument, because we would have indeed said that there is nothing special about using unmodified genes, it is equal to modified genes, and if having to use modified genes is good enough for same-sex couples and most hetero couples that want a better baby, then it is good enough for some radical crazy couple that wants to use their own substandard genes and put their baby at risk of low-intelligence and breast cancer. How could they argue that a right was being denied?
Social pressure still doesn’t deny people their right and some will easily ignore it. I assume that ‘unmodified’ baseline humans would freely congregate into their own communities.
Some will manage to ignore it, most others will be coerced and forced into using modified genes. You seem to feel that a “baseline human” ghetto is a fine and dandy thing. OK, those are standard Transhumanist sci-fi extropian feelings. Don’t piggy back on gay people to achieve your Transhumanist fantasies, make the case for Transhumanism on its own merit. Gay couples need equal protections and security and recognition for their relationships, not the right to use modified genes to create children together.
Now we do a U-turn, you’re the one who specifically said that it was an encroachment on reproductive rights. And just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean that it will not occur.
I know, but preemptively prohibiting something that hasn’t been done before and might never be possible isn’t “taking away rights” or “encroaching” on anything in a practical sense in terms of what people can do, even though some might say that the right exists now because it isn’t illegal now. I don’t think there is an existing right to do same-sex conception. I think there is a right to conceive with our unmodified genes with someone of the other sex, and that right shouldn’t be encroached on by equating it with an invented right to use modified genes.
It is undebatably reproduction, because a new nearbaseline human was created out of an existing genomic template, meaning also that the person does have the biological background of an individual or couple, even if that person was grown in an artificial womb. If a same-sex couple reproduce offspring our of their own genes, then it obviously ‘represent’ them.
No, it wouldn’t represent them, it would represent a non-existent couple based on them, but where one of them was the other sex. If that person really had been the other sex, the couple wouldn’t even have gotten together as a couple, so the child, instead of being proof that its parents had the hots for each other at least once, would carry in its own existence a rejection of the very genes that produced it. Growing a person from modified gametes is “production”, not “reproduction” because it doesn’t reproduce the couple or their genes.
Do you feel it is right for people to use their own genes to create people?