Rod Dreher's interview with Maggie Gallagher is well worth your time. Like the marginalized tea partiers who will be complaining today, Gallagher is convinced she is under siege from forces that mean her no harm.
While she and Dreher repeatedly invoke "war" and "battle" imagery, the rest of us are having a civic debate about whether and how to treat same-sex couples equally under the law. That is a reasonable discussion to be having in light of longstanding constitutional protections and the rise, in recent decades, of an openly homosexual minority who have abandoned the historical shame that their sexual orientation was expected to require. They do not want to have to marry people of the opposite sex, and an increasing number of heterosexuals agree that they'd prefer not to have the culture encourage that sort of deception.
Gallagher says that "2/3 of Americans agree with us," but what is it they agree with her her about? That same-sex couples should have no legal rights as couples? That they should have some legal rights, but not marriage? They they should not be able to call themselves married?
Few in the National Organization for Marriage, and certainly neither Gallagher nor Dreher, get to that level of detail, but that's where the rest of us are now. For example, Gallagher cites the win in California. But what is it that her side won here? Our Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to the equal protection of the law, as the constitution says, including all the rights, responsibilities and obligations that heterosexual married couples have. In approving Prop. 8, the voters said that same-sex relationships could not be called marriages. Nevertheless, they kept all of those rights, responsibilities and obligations intact under our existing domestic partnership law. This keeps some aspect of the stigma against same-sex couples in place by making the use of the word "marriage" a constitutional issue. But it does not change one aspect of California's laws that treat same-sex domestic partners the same as heterosexual married couples.
That is the victory that Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage are claiming in California. And this is how she, and the right are losing not some war, but their credibility. Her criticism of some gay rights extremists who use words like "hate" and "bigot" is well taken, but ironic since she uses the same kind of rhetoric, untethered to any recognizable reality.
Her risible new video, with its ominous trope of a "gathering storm" is typical. No one except those who believe same-sex couples are entitled to no rights at all thinks that such melodrama is warranted. Same-sex couples with legal rights do not constitute a gathering storm - they are a spring shower.
9 Comments for “Maggie Gallagher’s Weather Report on Marriage”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
David Link writes, “Her criticism of some gay rights extremists who use words like ?hate? and ?bigot? is well taken, but ironic since she uses the same kind of rhetoric, untethered to any recognizable reality.”
Will you please tell me what the word “bigot” can possibly mean if it cannot be applied to the obsessive and fanatical Maggie Gallagher? I agree that arguments are needed, not name-calling. But the name fits in her case, and saying so does not make me an extremist. The situation we are in is asymmetrical: she and her allies seek to deny gay people equal protection of the law. Gay people, on the other hand, contrary to Maggie’s claims, do not seek to take away her rights–unless one is talking about the right to deny gay people equal protection. I am a bit mystified by the big deal that Jon is making about the religious carve-outs in the Vermont SSM legislation, because–with all due respect to him and Mr. Blankenhorn–we have been doing that sort of thing in gay-rights bills for decades.
posted by avee on
Why the need to insult those protesting against out of control deficit spending at the Tea Parties? Yes, we get your need to establish your “liberal cred.” Far better to build alliances with the libertarian right than speak endlessly to the Democrat liberal echo chamber. But that’s not cool, I suppose.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
avee, there are a number of reasons why the “teabagging” protests do not deserve to be taken seriously. Overall, they are incoherent because (1) it is unclear exactly what they are protesting and what alternative they proposed, and (2) they have attracted a wide range of right-wing crackpots, from the “birthers” who insist for no reason that Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is a forgery, to people who, as Bernard Goldberg said to Sean Hannity the other evening, are determined to find fault with everything that Obama does regardless of the merits. (Thus, for example, a reasonable and diplomatic statement by Obama in Europe–that America has had its faults but so has Europe–is treated as tantamount to treason.) The original Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, and the fact that the taxes collected were not going to the colonies. By contrast, in the present case the taxation is WITH representation. Obama’s budget includes a tax CUT for all but the wealthiest Americans, and even there the increase brings the top marginal rate back to Clinton-era levels, about which expressions of outrage amount to a great distortion. There were, of course, conservative voices who objected to G.W. Bush’s deficit spending; but anyone whose outrage began approximately at noon on January 20, 2009 is simply a partisan and has no credibility. If the protesters were only or primarily libertarians, who were the people holding up insulting and ridiculous signs accusing Obama of not being an American, mocking his use of teleprompters (while the Fox Noise goons egging them on routinely use teleprompters themselves, as did the sainted Ronald Reagan), etc.? As for echo chambers, pardon me but the Democrats are arguing among themselves about many areas of policy. It is bizarre indeed for someone to talk about partisan echo chambers without mentioning that of the far right, which is increasingly divorced from reality. The Republican alternative to Obama’s budget is more tax cuts and a freeze on federal spending in the middle of an economic crisis that long experience and most economists tell us calls for stimulus spending. The far-right astroturfers behind the tea parties are as much in denial about Obama’s popularity as they are about the economic situation. The original Boston Tea Party was a protest against the tyranny of King George III. A democratically-elected President who is more popular now than the day he was elected can be called many things, but a tyrant? Please. Get a grip on reality. Explaining why you think someone’s policies are wrong works a lot better if you are not surrounded by the lunatic fringe.
posted by avee on
I completely disagree with Richard’s analysis. The main themes of the protest are very clear: against the unprecedent amount of deficit spending leading to trillions of dollars of new debt, a giant expansion for government, and more intrusive control by DC bureaucrats.
Some crackpots, but less than at the Cindy Sheehan hate fests (Bush as “ChimpyMcHilterBurton) and the hate that flows from Daily Kos and Moveon.org.
As to Obama’s tax “cut” (or politically motivated credits) that aim to releave 40% of the population from income taxes and force the remaining 60% to cover everything, it’s such a horrible idea only a liberal could love it.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Avee said “As to Obama’s tax “cut” (or politically motivated credits) that aim to releave 40% of the population from income taxes and force the remaining 60% to cover everything, it’s such a horrible idea only a liberal could love it.”.
Avee I’m pretty sure you’ve got that way wrong. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but it seems to me Obama has only increased taxes on about 2% of Americans and has reduced them on about 80%.
posted by avee on
No, it’s actually even worse than I thought.
Today, about 40 percent of Americans pay no federal income taxes. Barack Obama’s proposed refundable credit will shift the tax demographics even further, so that half of all voters will receive a cash windfall from Washington and an overwhelming majority will benefit from tax increases and more government programs.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Obama’s budget includes a tax CUT for all but the wealthiest Americans
Incorrect.
As it turns out, the facts are clear; Barack Obama has vastly increased taxation on 23% of the American population, and to top it off, that 23% chunk that is disproportionately poor and minority.
Furthermore, we should notice that Obama Party stalwarts like Rosendall insist on higher taxes for others, but like Obama’s endorsees Rangel, Stark, Solis, Sebelius, Geithner, and Daschle, do not themselves pay these taxes.
There were, of course, conservative voices who objected to G.W. Bush’s deficit spending; but anyone whose outrage began approximately at noon on January 20, 2009 is simply a partisan and has no credibility.
Of course, this is coming from Rosendall, who stopped screaming about deficits at noon on January 20, 2009, and has since embraced them completely.
Furthermore, this is based on rather strange logic; either you oppose deficits completely or you accept them completely. For leftists like Rosendall who insist on “nuance”, it’s strange to see them whining that, because you didn’t strenuously oppose deficits of $400 billion, that anyone who opposes deficits of over four times that amount has “no credibility”.
The Republican alternative to Obama’s budget is more tax cuts and a freeze on federal spending in the middle of an economic crisis that long experience and most economists tell us calls for stimulus spending.
Again, wrong.
Top Obama economic adviser Christina Romer has studied 20th-century recessions and concluded that monetary tools, not fiscal spending, produced recoveries. Even in the Great Depression, monetary expansion, not FDR’s public works, opened the way toward recovery beginning in the spring of 1933…….
They are also betting on the fact that a package divided between $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts will be the right mix, even though Romer’s research also shows tax cuts to have a larger multiplier effect on the economy than spending.
The reason why is very simple. Tax cuts return money to the people who are actually earning money, meaning those who are working and producing valuable goods and services. Spending merely increases the flow of money to people like Obama’s illegal-immigrant aunt, who enjoy cheap housing, free healthcare, generous welfare checks, and no-show government jobs, and who then repay Obama with campaign contributions — all by increasing expenses for and punishing those who actually work and follow the law.
There is no doubt in Obama’s mind. He knows that a welfare addict who refuses to work gets the same vote as someone who owns and operates a business that employs 100 people, and he will gladly take money away from the latter to purchase the loyalty of the former.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And a link for the former:
Top Obama economic adviser Christina Romer has studied 20th-century recessions and concluded that monetary tools, not fiscal spending, produced recoveries. Even in the Great Depression, monetary expansion, not FDR’s public works, opened the way toward recovery beginning in the spring of 1933…….
They are also betting on the fact that a package divided between $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts will be the right mix, even though Romer’s research also shows tax cuts to have a larger multiplier effect on the economy than spending.
Again, the reason tax cuts work is because they return money to those who actually produce goods and services. Government spending, on the other hand, is taking money AWAY from those people and giving it to those who do neither.
posted by Lorenzo on
Folk like Dreher and Gallagher have to claim that They And All They Hold Dear are under threat, because otherwise it is just members of a very large majority trying to persecute and bully a small minority.
Jew-hatred has and had the same dynamic.