Via Salon, Paul Ryan to GOP: Don’t abandon abortion fight:
The two issues have long been linked, but it seems likely the two will cleave apart from each other in coming months as mainline Republicans moderate themselves on marriage but remain committed to the fight against abortion. That was the general consensus among activists we spoke to at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives in March, where many seemed ready to embrace marriage equality, but thought abortion was still a critical issue for the GOP. Even many pro-gay conservative activists, like GOProud founder Jimmy LaSalvia, are pro-life.
Progressives and party operatives will hoot, as usual, but there are a great many of us who fervently support marriage equality and are not pro-choice on abortion, or are at least equivocal (e.g., first-trimester vs. late-term, especially partial-birth murder of the kind defended by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius). The hegemonic liberal media has long failed to report abortion horrors such as this, to its continuing and utter shame. More here.
23 Comments for “Abortion and Marriage Equality: Not the Same”
posted by Clayton on
“The two issues have long been linked, but it seems likely the two will cleave apart from each other in coming months as mainline Republicans moderate themselves on marriage but remain committed to the fight against abortion.”
Stephen, I guess you posted this before the RNC voted (unanimously, according to some accounts) to reaffirm its opposition to same-sex marriage. Looks like “mainline Republicans” won’t be moderating themselves on marriage any time soon. Unless there is a line of distinction between “mainline Republicans” and those who set RNC policy, a line of distinction that would be really bizarre.
But–not to worry–the RNC voted to continue its oppostion to abortion, too.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Unless there is a line of distinction between “mainline Republicans” and those who set RNC policy, a line of distinction that would be really bizarre.
Priebus has been explicit about the nature of the party’s “change in direction”. In Priebus’ view, the party’s positions will not change; messaging about the positions will change, becoming kinder and gentler, using Mike Huckabee as the model.
I don’t understand why anyone expects differently at this point.
Given its history, I don’t see that the Republican Party has much of a choice right now. It can’t change positions without losing its base.
Over the course of the last decade, the party turned position-making on “culture wars” issues over to the likes of Tony Perkins, culminating in the 2012 Platform, which he proudly proclaims he wrote, lock, stock and barrel. The 2012 Platform was the worst in Republican history on equality issues.
During the same decade, moderates were driven out, and supposedly pro-equality Republicans either hid out on marriage equality like GOProud did until January, or sold out on marriage equality for a “seat at the table” like LCR did when it supported Romney. While a few voices in the wilderness called for a “civil union compromise”, Republican elected officials pushed state constitutional amendments banning civil unions, and passed them in 20 states.
At this pint, social conservatives and Tea Party conservatives (both anti-equality) are firmly in control of the party. There is little or no real opposition. The “libertarian” wing is led by Rand Paul, a self-described supporter of “traditional marriage”. Operatives like Priebus are trying to straddle the “message”, but aren’t trying to change the positions.
What has changed is that there are a now few Republicans in responsible positions who are starting to say that this cannot continue of the party intends to remain a national party, and the party must change its positions.
In the long run, that view will probably prevail, but it will take several election cycles to see any real change.
posted by Doug on
I see no evidence that the GOP is moderating on marriage equality at all. The voices I hear are as strident, perhaps more so, as ever. I’d like some of whatever you are smoking, Stephen, if you really see a shift in GOP attitudes toward marriage equality. Maybe it’s time to get back on the meds Stephen, and start to look at reality.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Republican Party has long stood for the principle that the government, rather than individual citizens, should be the arbiter of moral decisions, no matter how personal the decision and regardless of the moral/religious convictions of the individual citizen.
That is the link between the two issues, which are otherwise distinct, and it is a principle that the Republican Party is not likely to change for several election cycles.
posted by Jorge on
Considering that the person who got the most headlines for arguing the opposite was Rick Santorum (who, in my humble opinion, ran last year as a neo-con in a year when they were dinosaurs within the GOP, much as that galls me), this may well be true.
Tom S. is right on what he says, but I think it’s an open question whether the split between abortion and gay marriage will happen for libertarian reasons (which will split the party), or for social conservative reasons–gay marriage being assimilated into family values (which is much less likely to).
While I can find little fault in how Tom frames the contrast, as usual I must opine that that when a government arbiter of moral decisions is a representative democracy, it is the community of citizens acting together to make a collective moral decision. Tom’s “no matter what”-implying language is a slight overreach, though I agree that the personal nature of a decision and the moral/religious convictions of an individual should be overruled as considerations as the situation demands.
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t think there’s much chance of the GOP platform changing on gay rights or abortion any time soon. The reaffirmation of the plank against gay marriage this week was evidence of that. Meanwhile one only has to look to the states where the Tea Party won big in 2010 and 2012 to see that making abortion as difficult as possible is high on their agenda. In fact, it seems that the money is leaving the anti-marriage movement and moving back to the anti-abortion activists. There’s not so much profit to be made from gay-bashing, but slut-shaming is more lucrative than ever. So don’t worry, the abortion fight isn’t going anywhere.
posted by Scott on
Stephen is aghast at the horrors of abortion now, well what about before it was legal. That horror was on going because it was illegal. So now it so bad; that those women who died grisly deaths before it was legal are nothing to him and his strident “pro-life” label.
Also The democrats have done the work unlike Stephen in his Grand Outdated Party. He just loves to blame others for not turning his party around. So sick of his revisionist bull sheet.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stephen is aghast at the horrors of abortion now, well what about before it was legal. That horror was on going because it was illegal. So now it so bad; that those women who died grisly deaths before it was legal are nothing to him and his strident “pro-life” label.
Expect more of it.
As Houndentenor points out, abortion is the new “gay-sex marriage” for Republicans, the money shot to excite the social conservative base and the hammer with which to pound Democrats.
Whatever Stephen’s deep-seated convictions about abortion might be, he hasn’t said squat about the issue in the 8-10 years I’ve been following IGF, and it looks like he’s testing out a new hammer.
Bring it on. And while we are asserting that the government is the proper arbiter of individual morality, let’s revisit sodomy.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The text of the anti-equality resolution itself — a reaffirmation of the 2012 Platform written by Tony Perkins, opposition to marriage equality, the assertion that marriage is a sanctified, and federalization of marriage through DOMA — is nothing new, or unexpected.
What is interesting are the footnotes. Click through the links accompanying the resolution and you’ll be treated to junk science piled upon junk science, debunked and discredited in the reality-based world.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
Their are many ways to advance pro-life and pro-choice goals. For example, expanded access to family planning services — i.e. birth control — will lead to fewer unplanned pregnancies. Fewer unplanned pregnancies will lead to fewer abortions (will also respecting women’s rights). Yet, many ‘pro-life’ folk take the position that the government should not subsidize family planning services for “sluts”.
Hmm if pro-lifers are opposed to this public investment, wait till they see how much it will cost to force every pregnant woman to give birth (at gunpoint or in a special prison center) and then all of the costs society will have to pay for; i.e. food, water, shelter, health care, education etc.
posted by Houndentenor on
Exactly. This isn’t about outlawing abortion as it is stigmatizing women for being sexually active. The way to reduce the number of abortions (something everyone is for, btw) is to provide better sex education and access to birth control. Instead we’re having fights about insurance providing birth control for women. Women who speak out for it are slut-shamed (how many pills does she need? How big a slut is she?) by serial-polygamist Rush Limbaugh. Santorum even bemoaned the legality of birth control. In 2013? Seriously. Do you really think these folks are going to support gay rights? Really? Get your head out of the sand. For most of them this isn’t about abortion. It’s about sex and the audacity of people not being ashamed of what those folks all do in private (including the gay sex). No wonder young people are rejecting that absurd level of hypocrisy.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If the “pro-life” movement was serious about reducing the number of abortions in this country, it would take a hard look at Belgium, which has permissive abortion laws and the lowest abortion rate in the world. Belgium has a strong social safety net for children, reflecting Belgium’s culture of valuing children, in marked contrast to our country.
What we’ve got is “personhood” amendments and idiots who reduce abortion to insulting campaign slogans.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Marriage equality and reproductive rights are inextricably linked starting with Griswold.
It’s all about regulating private sexual acts (for others).
Religious freedom for me, not thee.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Marriage equality and reproductive rights are inextricably linked starting with Griswold.
I’m not so sure about that, Mike. Sodomy and reproductive rights are inextricably linked by the Griswold line, but marriage equality has distinct legal underpinnings, through the long line of cases defining marriage as a “fundamental right”.
The connection between marriage equality and the Griswold line is less direct, perhaps best put in Justice Scalia’s ill-tempered Lawrence dissent — if upholding moral repugnance is not a proper grounds on which to ban private, consensual sexual conduct, then moral repugnance is not a grounds on which to the “fundamental right” to marriage can be barred to a class of citizens.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Griswold: contraception not restricted to married-only
Lawrence: extends Griswold to private consensual sex (hetero and homo) + requiring more than ‘moral disapproval’ for govt intrusion or regulation (which led Scalia to lament the inevitability of same sex marriage under that logic)
Loving: buttresses marriage as a fundamental right and the reasoning in Lawrence for vacating the sodomy statutes
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I don’t think that Loving was closely connected to Lawrence.
Loving is, obviously, at the heart of the marriage issue, as is evident by the number of times Loving was discussed in the Prop 8 briefs.
Loving is directly addressed only once in Lawrence, and that mention came in Justice Scalia’s dissent, discussing whether to apply a rational basis test or heightened scrutiny.
The connection, if there is one, between Loving and Lawrence is in Justice Kennedy’s discussion of Bowers, in which Justice Kennedy likens intimacy within a gay/lesbian relationship to intimacy within a marriage:
I think that indicates that Justice Kennedy was looking down the road, but it isn’t a direct link to the marriage chain of cases. Lawrence hangs very tightly off the Griswold line, it seems to me.
posted by Lori Heine on
The trend looks ahead to the future. It is certainly not the direction in which everyone in the GOP is racing. The party will eventually die if it doesn’t face reality. The old guard of soc-cons will not, in the meantime, magically evaporate into the ozone or simply put up the white flag.
I, personally, would be very happy to see the elephant die, and the Libertarian Party take its place. As we have a two-party electoral system, the LP has no other chance of really being influential. The GOP began life as a third party, then at the time of the Civil War they replaced the Whigs as one of the big two. Stranger things have happened.
posted by John D on
I just recently had this discussion with friends. I noted that there was a big difference between the arguments made by the opponents of abortion and those made by the opponents of same-sex marriage.
While I do not agree with the arguments made by abortion opponents, they tend to be very consistent in how they apply them. It’s really consistent to say that if abortion is murder, it can’t be done for any reason. Even the rape or life of the mother exceptions are very narrow.
Then look at the procreation argument. It only works with huge carve outs. Marriage is for procreation… unless the (opposite-sex) couple cannot procreate, or doesn’t care to, or doesn’t care to engage in vaginal sex…
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
1. Very few voters are actually 100% pro-life or pro-choice. These are buzz words created by folk that (generally) want to get more attention, money and or power by doing everything they can to divide and conquer the electorate.
2. The pro-life movement has (at least in America) largely been run by the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant sects. That is probably where the sexism/homophobia of the pro-life movement comes in. Yes, their are a few exceptions and we should not — as LGBTA community — exclude potential allies or supporters (that can bring something to the table) But, the reason that say the gay community and the pro-life community generally dislike each other is largely because of who has run the pro-life community.
3. Again, I think that we can actually advance pro-life AND pro-choice goals (or at least stated goals). It does not have to be an “either or” situation, but it does actually require more social responsibility (which conservatives and libertarians generally pretend does not exist)
4. The Republican Party was built by some former Whigs, members of the Liberty Party, the Free Soil/Free Labor party and successful northern businessmen. Today, this would probably not be possible largely due to unfair ballot access/public debate rules for parties.
5. Personally, whenever someone asks me to put my abortion ethical, moral and political views into a single buzz word, I generally say “pro-human”. I generally believe in comprehensive fact-based sexuality education/family planning services. I generally believe that how rare abortion is going to be or how much reproductive rights women have is largely tied to issues of personal responsibility, social responsibility and prejudice.
posted by Houndentenor on
Again, a false equivalency. It’s easy enough to find Americans who say they are against abortion in all circumstances. That is even the official position of many churches. But you would be hard pressed to find many people who would think it’s okay for a woman to have an abortion in the 8th month of pregnancy just because she’d decided she didn’t want to have a baby after all. Yet pro and anti abortion groups are treated as if they were equally for or against by our vapid news media who like to put on two extremists to yell at each other and pretend that was “debate”.
posted by Clayton on
“But you would be hard pressed to find many people who would think it’s okay for a woman to have an abortion in the 8th month of pregnancy just because she’d decided she didn’t want to have a baby after all. ”
Does this woman even exist? The woman who is eight months pregnant and, on a whim, decides one morning that she’s feeling a little blue, so she gets an abortion and a new hairstyle to cheer herself up? She seems to be the 21st century equivalent of the welfare queen who has a new baby every year so she use her monthly check to buy a Cadillac. My guess is that the vast majority of women in the eighth month of pregnancy who decide to abort have some pretty painful, pretty compelling reasons to take such a step. And I, for one, would like to give them the benefit of the doubt.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
1. If you look at the breakdown of the electorate, people may label themselves as being ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’, but in reality very few voters actually believe that abortion should always be legal or illegal (irrespective of my personal views of values on the subject).
2. The major media outlets often likes to ‘dumb down’ anything into polarized shouting matches. Letting a handful of interest groups and politicians frame the debate is part of the problem….or if they are Fox News they are just pandering to an partisan political agenda.
3. I do not know too many pro-life advocates for also support gay rights. Yes, they must exist and their is (I am told) a gay pro-lifers group. But, when the bulk of the movement is run, bought and paid for by the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant sects…..
posted by Throbert McGee on
I fail to see how “marriage equality” has the slightest thing to do with regulating other peoples’ private sexual rights — except, perhaps, in countries where fornication is criminalized or at least highly stigmatized.
When there’s no penalty at all for non-marital sex, the “marriage document” ceases to be a license, whatever else it may signify.