From the AP:
[New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie is among those who argue that Republicans can succeed when they focus on fiscal conservatism, often at the expense of focusing on key social issues, whereas former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee energize the party’s religious and socially conservative base. Palin and Huckabee have been in Iowa recently, as has Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenti, who courts that same base.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, of course, is another fiscal conservative who famously called for “a truce on social issues” (read: abortion and gay bashing). Yes, he added, “until the economic issues are resolved,” but a GOP president elected without making promises to the religious right, and in fact elected by downplaying social issues, won’t be indebted to them. That’s the fight, and it’s for the soul of the New GOP.
Jim DeMint, old school gay-baiter and never going to change. But he’s the past, not the future.
More. Because this is my post and it generated lots of bitingly negative comments, I’m going to highlight a response defending me by commenter avee:
It strikes me there is a certain purism among critics of Miller’s post. Miller makes the point (perhaps too broadly, but it’s a blog post, not a white paper) that a number of leading Republican presidential contenders are asking for a tone-down on social issues, and that this is significant. His critics blast him because these same leading GOP contenders are still not as good as liberal Democrats on gay issues, and therefore nothing has changed and we should all only support liberal Democrats.
Change is incremental, and failing to encourage small steps that can lead to bigger steps is a losers game — it’s the game of Democratic party fundraisers in LGBT-activist clothes. For my part, I’m tired of reading gay media articles that state (1) Gays are in big trouble if (or, more accurately, when) Republicans make big gains in November, and (2) offering no strategy other than going down with the Democratic ship.
Of course the critics weren’t persuaded, but neither do they have a convincing response to point (2) above.
40 Comments for “The Divide”
posted by Jack on
Chris Christie doesn’t talk a lot about social issues because there is no hay to made from these issues in New Jersey. When asked directly, he expresses completely unexceptionable right-wing GOP views on these issues: no abortion, “contract rights” for gays, etc. I think Mr Miller’s ideal society is Pinochet’s Chile or Mussolini’s Italy, where the concerns of business and the rich override any actual concern for legal rights for gays.
posted by Jack on
Sorry, meant to end paragraph above as follows:
…where the concerns of business and the rich override any actual concern for legal rights for gays and the larger desire for an open, civil, tolerant society.
posted by Mark on
That would be the same Chris Christie who–after downplaying the issue in the campaign–convened a special meeting of the NJ Senate Republicans after his election, and pleaded with them to vote down the state’s marriage equality bill.
I suppose the Christie model is to simply enact an anti-gay agenda, without campaigning on one.
posted by Amicus on
To consolidate his anti-gay gains/arm twisting, Christie co-opted the state’s only openly-supportive Republican Senator, Bill Baroni, who was the first in the state to vote “yes”, ‘on the question of marriage equality’.
How?
He plucked him out of his Senate seat by offering him a job at the Port Authority.
http://www.billbaroni.com/
posted by Arthur on
And be careful with the endorsements for the Tea’s, new poll out says almost 50% is from the Christian right.
http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=386
posted by Tim on
Bingo. Change is not coming to the GOP on social issues, incrementally or otherwise. That’s wishful thinking. Said it before and I’ll say it again — there’s no fight underway for the soul of the Republican Party. The Republican Party has no soul.
posted by Jorge on
And what is the future? CNN going to GOProud for comment on that DeMint deal!?
Anyway, the biggest name out of all those mentioned is Sarah Palin. Interesting how Stephen Miller hypes up her social conservative credentials at a time when she is most identified with the Tea Party movement, which he argues is part of a growing neutrality and distancing on social issues. Of course, he’s right on both counts. The tea party movement may indeed have a socially conservative base, but its overaching agenda is not social conservatism. No amount of wishful thinking is going to make it morph into the monster people desperately hope they can attack. Fact is, elections are about issues, not parties or black-and-white ideologies.
posted by Bobby on
So what’s wrong with social issues? I support abortion but that doesn’t mean I support taxpayer funded abortions or high school teachers taking 15 year olds to the abortion clinic without consent from their parents. Clearly there is room for social issues within the GOP.
posted by Debrah on
Here is today’s NRO editorial in response to those who critiqued their previous one on the subject.
I’m sure that Jonathan Rauch or Stephen Miller will have a reply.
Rauch is mentioned as the only detractor who comes close to offering a rational argument.
No surprise there.
Although, as most of you know, I’m no traditionalist nor someone tethered to religion regarding this issue.
Just that I don’t think the government has a role in making such decisions.
Many points made here are ones with which I agree.
posted by Amicus on
Wow! That’s one helluva an arrogant “reply”. It’s just crying out to be fisked, line-by-line.
For instance, consider this arrogant allegation: “(As for why it has in the Western tradition been restricted to groups of two, or should be so restricted now, they have no convincing answer at all and barely try to devise one.)” Now, I may be wrong, but I think that this is covered in Jonathan Rauch’s book; and the standard to be ‘convincing’ is so low, since NRO have none either. If I’m right and they ignored this, then their superior air is going to be expertly deflated by those whose wordcraft is far superior to mine (like Andrew Sullivan, for instance).
Consider this bare assertion: “There is a governmental interest in ensuring that as many children as possible are raised in a home by biological parents who are committed to each other and to them for the long term. ”
It doesn’t make sense that a ‘marriage culture’, which is truly the force behind any ethic of child rearing, less so the law, would be harmed by more marriage. What’s more, we now have evidence this is true. It’s not just writing on the wall.
We saw in the other thread that the law does not now make a fast link between ‘marriage’ and ‘procreation’, so holding up civil marriage licenses as restrictively procreative is like pushing on a string or something. Not only can people procreate without a marriage license, it is not illegal to do it even with another woman’s man (or man’s wife). What’s more, two people can get married in the Elvis chapel and completely dissolve the relationship within weeks, just as a matter of ‘form of the sexes’ (penis-vagina), and this does nothing – nothing – to further a shouted-out Governmental interest in parents committed to each other or their children.
Indeed, to even make sense of their Governmental Interest, they would have to radically revise the ‘definition of marriage’ as it is understood and enforced at law. Otherwise, the have grossly misstated and implied an existing link between their idealized governmental interest and the current state of the law.
Because they are unwilling to do take up this hard work, including turning down opportunities, even, to strengthen divorce laws (re CA), their animus against gays is even more plain, in spirit/action, not just omissions in their paper reasoning.
Finally, the notion that the State could not achieve the NRO editor’s purported Governmental Interest, even if the fundamental right of marriage were finally recognized for gays, legislatively or otherwise, is what has been shown over and over in court to be false. In the latest showing, the Prop8 trial, the attorney for the defense, when asked at point by the presiding Judge as to why gay couples would harm nongay couples, answered truthfully, “I don’t know…I don’t know”.
And then they go on to blast proponents for lazy thinking, for not ever having thought about what governmental interest might be served by gay marriage. Apart from the caustic effects of second-class citizenship, the role that such has in abetting homophobic hate, and the endless divisiveness that they would bring to our politics, they seem to completely have forgotten David Blankenhorn, who framed the issue as rival goods, not good-evil, and, in doing so, conceded a whole list of reasons why it might be smart policy to finally do the right thing, which, in turn, could at long last move the Left-Right discussion past its current ill-conceived and socially costly frame and onto real factors threatening ‘marriage culture’.
Last I checked, Mr. Blankenhorn was not a “proponent”, so one has to laugh at the slip shod scholarship coming from the NRO these days. The publication really did pass along with William F. Buckley, Jr., didn’t it.
posted by Carl on
“Jim DeMint, old school gay-baiter and never going to change. But he’s the past, not the future.”
How is Jim DeMint the past? He is one of the most powerful politicians in today’s Republican Party. Many of his endorsed candidates, such as Christine O’Donnell, won, even when the “mainstream” Republicans tried to stop them.
Do we have any reason to believe that ANY of the Republican nominees who might win Senate seats this year disagree with him on homosexuality?
Then we have evangelical leader David Barton, who has campaigned with Sen. McCain and likely future Sen. Marco Rubio, who has ties to conservative icon Glenn Beck, and Newt Gingrich, as well as possible Sen. Sharron Angle. He is suggesting the government should regulate homosexuality.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/top_evangelical_david_barton_government_should_regulate_homosexuality.php?ref=fpi
If anything, I would say that any view of moderation on homosexuality is the GOP’s past.
posted by BobN on
Just that I don’t think the government has a role in making such decisions.
Uh… refusing to recognize couples who live together for decades, providing and caring for each other and, sometimes, for dependent children IS making a decision.
The NRO reply is one big hole into which all couples with no biological children fall. The idea that the government has no interest in adoption, mutual care between adults, support for widowed people, etc. is just absurd.
posted by avee on
It strikes me there is a certain purism among critics of Miller’s post. Miller makes the point (perhaps too broadly, but it’s a blog post, not a white paper) that a number of leading Republican presidential contenders are asking for a tone-down on social issues, and that this is significant. His critics, above, blast him because these same leading GOP contenders are still not as good as liberal Democrats on gay issues, and therefore nothing has changed and we should all only support liberal Democrats.
Change is incremental, and failing to encourage small steps that can lead to bigger steps is a losers game — it’s the game of Democratic party fundraisers in LGBT-activist clothes. For my part, I’m tired of reading gay media articles that state (1) Gays are in big trouble if (or, more actually, when) Republicans make big gains in November, and (2) offering no strategy other than going down with the Democratic ship.
posted by Carl on
avee, Stephen specifically mentioned Jim DeMint as part of the GOP’s past when I don’t see any example of that. That’s the main reason I responded. How can you be a part of the GOP’s past when you are successfully getting so many of your choices in the GOP primaries?
posted by BobN on
It strikes me there is a certain purism among critics of Miller’s post.
First of all, you should become familiar with Miller’s oeuvre before criticizing his critics.
Secondly, yes, change is incremental and, so far, all we’ve seen is a change in rhetoric. And that’s good, I suppose, unless all it is is rhetoric. Miller is dazzled by the lipstick. Me? I’d like to see better behavior from the pig before leaping to conclusions.
posted by Amicus on
One strategy is to position for a backlash against the David Bartons.
It probably time to push the right to get past the NRO’s (and others) hard stance on yes/no. Instead, those who have open hearts on the Right need to be asking, if the law were to change, how best can we express and ethic that we want? And, there is a difference between the law and social ethics or general cultural understanding. Both are important, but maybe the latter even more, and the conservative view point ought to be at the table in shaping those fully.
Otherwise, the NRO crowd and the Barton-led are wasting valuable time of the Conservative “movement” and squandering an opportunity to express a useful social ethic. Rather than shaping the outcome to a just and balanced end, the refusniks end up dooming our politics to the endlessness of “yes/no” and, in a way, their fears could end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, both in narrow political terms and broader social norms.
posted by Carl on
“One strategy is to position for a backlash against the David Bartons.”
I hope that happens but this man is probably closer to the GOP mainstream of today than any gay rights supporters would be.
posted by John Howard on
Amicus, you don’t need to make those lame psuedo arguments anymore, why not just make the argument that you are really making about procreation: yeah, we demand to be allowed to procreate together and have biological children together. Surely it is an air tight argument to NRO’s point that “There is a governmental interest in ensuring that as many children as possible are raised in a home by biological parents who are committed to each other and to them for the long term.” Just say that soon same-sex couples will be able to have biological children together and so should be allowed to marry also.
posted by Jorge on
It strikes me there is a certain purism among critics of Miller’s post.
Guilty. Work with it.
Miller makes the point (perhaps too broadly, but it’s a blog post, not a white paper) that a number of leading Republican presidential contenders are asking for a tone-down on social issues, and that this is significant.
And over time he’s put forth this position fairly convincingly. But I think the holes in his reasoning on this post reveal a greater complexity than he is portraying (or, let’s be generous, than he is able to portray). I don’t see any reason not to be tough and ask questions. Over time Mr. Miller (and every other contributer) tends to produce more and better refined examples of whatever patterns he picks up–when they’re legit.
This is an example of “more” rather than “more refined.”
posted by Amicus on
JH: position is the same: gay couples should have at least the same access to reproductive technologies as nongay couples.
posted by Amicus on
p.s., JH, if we gays were in the majority, in an alternate biological fate, and controlling who had license to procreate, then you would be asking for the same forms of ‘equality’ at law from us, I expect. Do unto others, then, as you would have them do unto you.
posted by John Howard on
People should not be allowed to try to reproduce with someone of the same sex. People should only be allowed to reproduce with someone of the other sex. Same-sex procreation should be prohibited. Reproduction technology doesn’t enter into it. The difference is in the methylation of our reproductive cells, which are complementary.
posted by Carl on
“(2) offering no strategy other than going down with the Democratic ship.”
There is no strategy being offered partially because there are few strategies being offered on how to improve things in the GOP, if they can be improved. Instead the idea is often, well, the Democrats aren’t any good, and they’re going to lose in November. Both of those are true. But it doesn’t do very much to help change a party where one of the most powerful voices wants to fire gay teachers.
posted by Debrah on
You guys might want to read this.
Quite an objective overview of the Rutgers case.
posted by Rob on
John Howard, what do your neo-luddite statements have anything to do with the subject of Miller’s post? You’re overtly obsessed about same-sex parents using artificial wombs and genetic engineering to produce their offspring. Look, I could probably debate you on the subject of bioethics and futurism endlessly, but here isn’t the right place to discuss this. So knock it off and try to write about the actual subject.
And about the actual subject: why do LGBT need to be on either the Demos, or Repubs side? What’s wrong about voting for a third party? Saying that it’s a waste of a vote is a lame excuse since I think most readers on the Independent Gay Forum do think that voting for either mainstream party is a waste as it is.
posted by Amicus on
hummm….silver lining or black cloud?
1994 – enough Democratic Senators opposed to open gay servicemembers to force Clinton to retreat to DADT; all Republican Senators opposed
2010 – 57 Democratic Senators in favor of open service; all Republican Senators opposed
Pew survey, 2010, fastest growing groups in favor of gay marriage are “liberals” and “independents”.
“Going down with the Democrats” is an ebb tide: true or false?
posted by BobN on
Quite an objective overview of the Rutgers case.
Objective? Nonsense. Contrarian, sure. [what the heck kind of spell check does this new system have? “Contrarian” is a perfectly correct word!]
Oh, and it’s inaccurate. His summary of the case is just plain wrong.
posted by John Howard on
Sorry Rob, Debrah linked to the latest NRO response, and Amicus made a long fisk of it, and I responded to him, because he was in need of correction, he was misrepresenting his actual argument.
I think Miller is also just obfuscating and you all are creating a sideshow. You should quit wasting time and get both parties on board with the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise, instead of clinging to procreation rights. The reason the left-right split is kind of messed up is because Libertarian Transhumanists have hijacked the cause of gay rights for their own ends. It’s you guys against thousands of gay families that have no interest in transhumanism, but really could use CU’s and federal recognition.
posted by Jorge on
I think Miller is also just obfuscating and you all are creating a sideshow.
This is YOU.
Don’t feed the troll (Sorry! Will Save failed!)
This is a website devoted to discussing political and social issues that impact the gay community. You are a lone person arguing an ideology that, far from being mainstream, is deviant from libertarianism, liberalism and progressivism, religious, traditional, and social conservatism, agnosticism, scientific skepticism, capitalism, communism, or whatever other 10 most relevant ideologies to the question of homosexuality one wishes to consider. And moreover exceptionally deviant from the ideologies represented on this website. Your opinions do not introduce new ideas or bolster worthy old ideas. Alone among the posters here, your posts do not attempt to problem-solve. Instead they distract from the political and social issues that impact the gay community.
I think it is time for you to present some new insights in this changing world, either by doing a research run that will give you new insights to bring to the table, or by taking your current message abroad to those who have not yet heard it.
posted by John Howard on
The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise is an attempt to problem solve. It is a new idea that hasn’t been addressed by most of the bloggers here yet. I am as annoyed as you that it is taking this long to get them to have a good faith in depth discussion on it. All I’ve gotten is redundant irrelevant arguments that wind up with the person confirming what I said in the first place: that they care more about being allowed to conceive with someone of the same sex than thousands of same-sex families that don’t have any recognition or protections. I’m not about to toss that progress away and start over at another site, I think now that we have gotten to this point here, it is up to you guys to make the next step and do something new: support the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise.
posted by Amicus on
The compromise is marriage. Sweden thought, once, that civil union was a godly, goodly compromise.
Meanwhile, above, I relied on Blankenhorn, because he talked about two goods, even if he mistakenly called them “rivals”.
The truth is that there are other grounds.
The notion that one can reason _fully_ from observed biology to God’s objective moral truth/order is fraught with peril. Those who do it, for _practical_ or theoretical reasons, should live in fear/humility, not arrogance, as our comprehension of God’s full purpose is simply not large enough.
That is why I’m always queasy when people start to ask, “What is the purpose of gays?” or state “Here is the purpose of nongays: sexual reproduction, and the sole foundation (or “primary purpose”) of the state’s interest in them.”
Why do I have to know what the purpose of gays is? Where was I (or Job) when the foundations of the earth were laid?
The purpose of gays could be – and is – the same as all the rest: to shine forth.
The “Government Interest”, if any, is to facilitate that, within the bounds of a just society.
There is more, even conceptually, but that will do.
posted by John Howard on
The compromise is marriage.
How is that a compromise? You know with a compromise, each side is supposed to get most of what they want, while each gives up a little bit more than they want to give up. If one side gets everything they want, while the other side gets nothing they want, it’s not a compromise. Are you willing to give up anything, or give the other side anything?
You could gain federal recognition and uniform “marriage-minus-conception-rights” civil unions in all 50 states almost immediately, if you just gave up equal conception rights to a married man and woman. The other side would gain the legal definition of marriage as a man and a woman, and the social stability of committed gay couples, if they just gave up the small cost of federally recognizing and providing protections to same-sex couples. See, that is a compromise.
And the compromise wouldn’t even rule out marriage and “shining forth” forever, it would only be a federal law that could be repealed if and when Congress decides same-sex procreation is both safe and good public policy to allow. It would be an immediate improvement for thousands of gay couples and their families, and you wouldn’t be giving up anything that can even be done, or might ever be possible. You wouldn’t even be giving up the possibility of doing it in the future.
I’d argue that the ban should be made permanent with a Constitutional Egg and Sperm amendment to reap all the benefits from banning genetic engineering forever, such as being able to plan research and resource use, and knowing that boys will never be able to mate with other boys, or girls with other girls. But that argument should be fairly short, once we start to have it.
posted by Amicus on
How is that a compromise?
Because the common ground for conservatives all around is that they are interested in preserving “marriage culture”. It’s good because it marginalizes extremists on the Right and avoids the danger broadly radicalizing the Left. There is more, but that will do.
There is no logical link between marriage at law and your legal ban of a specific technology that may never prove viable, as we saw in the other thread, so the rest of what you’ve written is inconsequential (sorry).
posted by Amicus on
“danger broadly” s/b “danger of broadly”
posted by Amicus on
Meanwhile, there is this other thought, on “The Divide”.
True or false: the Right ought to split, rather than try to maintain its bogus coalition.
Old-school gay-baiters like DeMint cannot win power on their lonesome.
However, the Rockerfeller Republicans and fiscal conservatives can probably influence a Democratic-led regime substantially. The record is pretty clear on that: there are plenty of Democrats “for sale”.
posted by Jorge on
The Republican party has already lost a lot of people who have become Independents, but when push comes to shove, they’re not going to vote for liberal Democrats. They’re still going to think the left is more dangerous than the right. So Republicans need some type of coalition–Republican/Independent or Republican/Democrat–just to get elected.
You promote Rockerfeller Republicans and fiscal conservatives. But, with the Republican rank and file turning against big government conservatism, they’re all fiscal conservatives now. As for Rockerfeller Republicans, they can’t beat people like DeMint in primaries in conservative states, and they can’t win the general election in liberal states. Heck, even in the NY governor’s race, the moderately conservative, squishy on abortion Rick Lazio got trounced by Carl Palladino, a tea-party supported millionaire who promises to use emminent domain to stop the Grand Zero mosque. Then Palladino came within striking distance of Andrew Cuomo in a general election poll. So a Republican/Democrat coalition is just not tenable.
posted by Amicus on
No, see Lazio bowed out and he should still be running on his own ticket. Theoretically, I’m asserting that the only thing empowering eye-popping candidates like Angle, is the two party system. In general elections, I submit that more moderate Republicans have a better chance than Tea Party yahoos. Even if it is slim, it’s an advantage that could be pressed to tamp down and eventually bring to heel some of the wildness going on (like being forced to bear your rapist’s child…or the coded, volatile messages from DeMint about “unmarried women”).
posted by John Howard on
The legal link is affirmed in the Egg an Sperm Civil Union Compromise itself: 3) Affirm in federal law the right of all marriages to conceive children together using their own gametes. It’s already in case law and common law but #3 would make it explicit.
Also, I’m not trying to ban a specific technology, the ban is a blanket ban: 1) Stop genetic engineering by limiting conception of children to the union of a man and a woman’s sperm and egg.
posted by Jorge on
In general elections, I submit that more moderate Republicans have a better chance than Tea Party yahoos.
And you’re wrong. Carl Palladino has a better chance of winning the governor’s race head-to-head against Cuomo than Rick Lazio. Sarah Palin improved McCain’s results in the 2008 election. According to at least one poll, 70% of all Americans support the goals of the Tea Party Movement. Voters don’t want the squishy middle anymore–that includes on abortion, in which more voters want clear commitments to outlaw the practice of partial birth abortion than to permit partial birth abortion in the cases of race and incest (and if you think the issue is instead the overturning of Roe v. Wade, well, you’re wrong again). The voters are tired of business as usual from both parties, they want radical change and for their voices to be heard.
posted by Amicus on
Yeah, but check out Murkowski’s numbers. She’s in it. And, given how Paladino is imploding this week with “brainwashed” kids to be gay, Lazio might be getting a ‘rush-to-sanity’ boost.
I’m not supportive of a “radical change” or dash to the hard right, just because the Bush Presidency was a failure, in conservative terms.
How many whacks at it does the Conservative Movement get before one believes that the goal really is the repeal of the law (no one is ever going to do better than Sandra Day’s ‘balance of liberties’ argument/decision).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial-Birth_Abortion_Ban_Act