More evidence that conservative support for same-sex marriage is growing:
A 2014 Pew poll found that 61 percent of Republicans under 30 support gay marriage.
According to Data Science polling, 64 percent of self-identifying Evangelical Millennials support same-sex marriage.
And the most recent survey of incoming freshman at UCLA found that 44.3 percent of students who considered themselves “far right” believed same-sex couples should have the right to legally marry, while 56.6 percent of “conservatives” believed the same.
Which may be why anti-gay-marriage activist Maggie Gallagher, in her latest missive, sounds like an alienated and bitter self-outcast.
More. She’s not alone among social conservative activists, of course. The Heritage Foundation seems to be getting even more anti-gay. Their latest: My Father Was Gay. Why I Oppose Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage.. This sentence, in quotation marks, apparently can be found nowhere on the Internet except in articles by this author:
Statements like this are lies: “Permitting same-sex couples (now also throuples) access to the designation of marriage will not deprive anyone of any rights.”
Heritage, it seems, is on a roll. Now they’re claiming that same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions. Desperation tactics.
Furthermore. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely GOP presidential contender, may not support same-sex marriage, but he attended the reception when his wife’s cousin was married to her partner. The Walker’ then-19-year-old son, Alex, served as a witness and signed his name to the marriage certificate. Generational change.
46 Comments for “Just a Matter of Time”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Just a Matter of Time
Yup. The only question is how long it will take for the Republican Party to drop its opposition to equality for gays and lesbians. We’ve all know that for a long time, Stephen.
But the question is when and how. I don’t know about the how, but I agree with a prediction that you made a year or two back, in which you estimated that it would take several presidential election cycles. I hope that we are wrong and that change will come more quickly, although I sure don’t see it happening right now.
I do want to comment on one thing, though, that I consider hopeful. Marco Rubio had this to say about attending a same-sex wedding involving family, friend and staff:
More to the point, though, Rubio likened a same-sex marriage to a remarriage after divorce. I’ve long thought that an analogy between the two is apt: Both are sinful and forbidden as conservative Christians understand their scripture, but the one is no longer requires condemnation and shunning (as it did when I was a child), while the other does.
Rubio’s analogy suggests that he can see a path toward practical acceptance of same-sex marriage opening for conservative Christians, just as it appears to have opened for him.
I suppose that this question will make the rounds. I’ll be curious about the responses from the Republican presidential hopefuls.
posted by Houndentenor on
I think we all get a pass on failing to predict just how quickly the dominoes would fall for marriage equality. Even 10 years ago it seemed impossible in the foreseeable future and now here we are (fingers crossed) with SCOTUS about to rule in our favor. And as Stephen correctly points out even the young people int he groups that were the most against us now poll in the majority in favor of gay rights. (I can’t be the only one that finds it interesting that Evangelical youth polled at higher support than self-identified Republican youth except that not all Evangelicals are Republicans, even among older age brackets.) So the only question is how long it will take the GOP to catch up? Awhile, I’m afraid because the likely primary voters in most states are against gay marriage and that position was purposely reinforced by the party for over a decade for political purposes. If this becomes the albatross around the necks of GOP candidates for the next decade or so they have no one but themselves to blame. They were happy to demonize gay people, especially in 2004, and if that bites them in the ass now you’ll have to excuse me while I enjoy my Schadenfreude.
posted by clayton on
When my husband and I got married in 2008, there were only two equality states. By the end of yje year, thanks to Prop 8, there was only one. In May of 2014 there were 19. Today there are 38. The speed has been amazing.
posted by Lori Heine on
These are hopeful developments. Politicians are political animals, first and foremost. Any personal convictions they may have, one way or another, fade in comparison to clear polling trends.
The Maggie Gallagher types will keep being weird and saying strange things. They will get increasingly hysterical, or bitter. That’s all to the better for us, really, because younger voters know that these people are loons. The only hope they have to remain credible, they’re dashing themselves by their continued lunacy.
But the crazies are making one last, desperate stand. Sometimes its darkest just before dawn. I get mailing and email blasts telling me that I need to send money–urgently!–because the crazies are being so ugly. But I simply shrug and toss them into the trash or delete them. What’s happening now is merely to be expected, and nothing to get scared about.
I am (cautiously) hopeful.
posted by Houndentenor on
The backlash is inevitable. What sucks for them is that all the dire predictions they made will look increasingly absurd as time goes on. No heterosexual marriages will be destroyed and other than the gay couple who can now get married and a few bigots who have learned that mouthing off can earn you up to a million dollars on gofundme (or whatever) everyone else will just go on about their business as if nothing had changed because for them nothing will have. And a generation from now people will read about this in books like young people read about segregation and wonder what the hell was wrong with people.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
Maggie went from being the the toast of the GOP fundraising (eating fancy and nice parties) to the being seen as the undermedicated homeless person who talks about the CIA and smurfs
posted by Lori Heine on
Well anyway, Smurfs are kind of nice.
Maybe she’ll find a new direction, and become a delegate to the world for little blue people with pointy white hats.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
Maybe. Although the Smurfs dont appear to be very conservative.
They dont seem to follow a standard free market capitalist system and its sort of hard to detetmine their religion or sexuality
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
It is tricky (with polling) because we dont have national elections.
We will see what starts to happen in primary elections, conventions, and with offie holders.
The fact that folks 35 and younger know openly gay people is a big factor. How the news media and popular culture has dealt with LGBT people, issues and history is also a factor.
posted by Houndentenor on
I started first grade the year they finally got around to desegregating the schools in my hometown. Older people and even friends from other schools where there weren’t any African American kids said horrible things. it really was no big deal for us. (There were some problems at the high school but that didn’t affect us.) What was interesting was at an early age I figured out what assholes most adults really were. I heard what they said about black people and then knew black people and they weren’t anything like that at all. Some were nice, some were jerks, so pretty much just like white people. It’s easy to demonize people who live somewhere else. it’s hard when they’re people you know, even your friends, siblings and classmates. And just like my generation with race, it makes people wonder what else they are lying about.
posted by Mike in Houston on
So, Maggie Srivastav (that is her civil legal marriage name), is now an outcast? That will be news to the throngs of GOP social conservatives who comprise the leadership and frankly mainstream republicans at the national and state level.
I applaud the trickle of GOP folks who have made the decision (choice?) to reject the rigid orthodoxy… but as the saying goes, “it’s not just that they’re dying, but how long it takes and who they’re dragging down with them.”
posted by Jorge on
“Rubio compared it to attending “second marriages” after divorce, which the Catholic Church teaches are attempts to consecrate adultery…
Senator Rubio is not the only one who feels that way. Other Catholics I respect, from Ross Douthat to Eve Tushnet, have spoken about accompanying friends on their gay-wedding journeys, even if they disagree.”
Other than political junkies sneering at Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani and advice columnists fielding questions about weddings, the only person I’ve ever heard of who cared about remarriages was a priest who offended my aunt–she went to another church. Gingrich and Giuliani were adulterers, of course, and their examples show that divorces usually happen to at least one half of the marriage for good reason. I wouldn’t have thought of the comparison between gay marriages and second marriages, because of how radically different the social views of them are.
And by the way, it was a very nice wedding. I like quaint weddings better… the other couple of hundred people in my extended family obviously don’t.
posted by Jorge on
Anyway, when it comes to declining to partake in activities that most other people do, well, some people do it for personal religious reasons (Orthodox Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses have well-known beliefs in this area), but most of the time we’re talking about not religious doctrine but personal and social morality. The sense of right and wrong that forbids certain conduct even if no one is watching, the sense of social propriety that causes one to bow out even if everyone is watching and they are engaging in it. That’s not really about religion or faith.
Gay marriage still has that aspect, but it is losing it.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As a side note, the Washington Post has a fascinating article this morning about the 1975 marriage of Anthony Sullivan and Richard Adams and the aftermath, including Justice Kennedy’s 9th Circuit opinion that approved the government’s deportation of Sullivan.
posted by Jorge on
This sentence, in quotation marks, apparently can be found nowhere on the Internet except in articles by this author:
Statements like this are lies: “Permitting same-sex couples (now also throuples) access to the designation of marriage will not deprive anyone of any rights.”
One of the more common ways of framing the argument goes something like, “if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married” (which is on the internet). There are others that are more to the point, generally claiming that gays don’t want to infringe upon straight marriages.
The reason the author didn’t quote the comebacks accurately is because if she had, they would have been too convincing. Partisans tend to play tricks like that.
But the cat’s been out of the bag for a while now. I don’t think people are claiming gay marriage won’t infringe on anyone’s rights anymore. Perhaps I’m wrong.
posted by Lori Heine on
Of course many of us are claiming that, because it’s true. Gay marriage does NOT infringe on anyone else’s rights.
Human rights are not a zero-sum game. Every person has the same number of them–and the same kind–as everyone else.
Foes of gay marriage tend to start with the flawed premise that actual human rights are a scarce resource and work from there.
posted by Mike in Houston on
It’s nearly always the same with the “end times” crowd — once the Supremes weigh in and affirm marriage equality AND the sky doesn’t fall (or heterosexual marriages combust spontaneously), everyone will go about their normal lives.
From that point on, the only time you’re likely to hear about same-sex marriage is if you’re invited to a gay couple’s wedding or reception — and like any other invitation, you’re free to say yes or no (for whatever reason)… or if you’re still on NOM’s mailing list.
posted by dc on
The thing that strikes me about the article titled “My Father was Gay…” is its profoundly outdated quality. Even the title–“My father was gay”–reeks of 1980s identity politics. Yes, your father was gay, is there anything else you can tell us about his humanity, or are gay people just the sum of their sexual identity? Also, this woman’s description of gay culture seems just as outdated and one-dimensional, ie. her father’s multiple partners, gay male disrespect for women, and his (implied) shameful death. It fits a familiar anti-gay storeline concerning gay life.
In order to accept her account of gay culture and many of the accounts of other anti-gay children of gay parents, it seems as if you have to believe that gayness is some sort of static, one-dimensional, and perverse identity. In other words, you have to believe that gays are–as humans–different or abnormal. That seems to be the underlying assumption of much of this woman’s argument. And that, I think, reflects a retrograde and mischaracterizing view of homosexuality. It harkens back to the 1980s or 1970s when this woman and her colleagues (think Robert Oscar Lopez) were children. It we accept that gay life is different now that what it was then, then shouldn’t we accept that being a child of gay parents is different now that it was in the 80s or, worse, the 70s? Also, it is telling how all of the gay parents of these kids are now dead. Dead from AIDS or old age, the gay parents of these supposedly damaged (yet economically successful) children are rendered nothing more than voiceless others, voiceless homosexuals.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely GOP presidential contender, may not support same-sex marriage, but he attended the reception when his wife’s cousin was married to her partner. The Walker’ then-19-year-old son, Alex, served as a witness and signed his name to the marriage certificate.
Governor Walker handled the question adroitly, deflecting the question while seeming to answer it, just as he dealt with it last year, during the run up to his reelection:
(1) Walker did not indicate whether he would attend a same-sex wedding (as Rubio (yes), Kascich (yes) and Huckabee (no) did. Instead he pointed to the past, saying that he did not attend a family wedding (he had a conflicting business obligation) but did attend the reception, a politically adroit straddle/evasion.
(2) Discussing his son’s participation in the wedding, he again deflected, deploying the “Who can account for kids?” shrug and coupling it with a description of his sons’ differences with him (leave marriage to the churches) that dog-whistled to both the “libertarian” and social conservative wings of the party.
This is Walker at his carefully-scripted best, avoiding “difficult” questions while seeming to answer them. Keep and eye out, and you’ll see a lot more of it going forward on all sorts of issues. It is his political signature.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Heritage, it seems, is on a roll. Now they’re claiming that same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions. Desperation tactics.
The argument goes that marriage equality will “devalue marriage”, leading straight men to lose interest in marrying, leading to more pregnancies outside of marriage, leading to more abortions. The lack of factual grounding and logical thinking at each step is obvious.
Tony Perkin’s FRC is also on a roll, if the daily calls to prayer they’ve been offering up are any indication. In recent days, they’ve been pounding on the theme of conversion of the Court’s three Jews (Breyer, Gingsburg, Kagan) with prayers like this: “May each of our Supreme Court Justices, if they have not already, come to a saving knowledge of Christ, just as it is written, that in calling us to pray for all who are in authority, God says He wants “all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (Rom 1:16; 2:9-10; 1 Tim 2:1-8)” and “May every Justice bow their knee before Jesus, the Supreme Judge of the World, to whom they will give account. (Acts 17:31)”
Uh, huh.
As this thing comes to a head, the anti-gay crowd is getting wilder and wilder. None are even trying to hide the anti-gay animus, the the religious thrust of their arguments, or the fact-free convictions have have driven the “traditional marriage” movement for a long time, carefully hidden under a veneer of religiously-neutral “objectivity” until now.
To my mind, that’s a good thing. Let them hang it all out and let the American people see just who and what they are.
posted by Jim Michaud on
You’re correct, Tom. Have you checked out their briefs to be submitted before SCOTUS? Jeez, it’s almost as if they WANT to lose! Losing this will do wonders for the right wing outrage industry. Think about it. So they’re through with being careful. Wilder and wilder they get. Go down in flames with arms & legs waving and screaming their heads off. Claims that GLBTs will put Christians in concentration camps. They know they’re going to lose, so might as well go down in memorable style.
posted by Lori Heine on
I’m getting the jumbo-sized popcorn with lots of butter. The show is going to be entertaining to watch.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Have you checked out their briefs to be submitted before SCOTUS?
I’ve read all the primary briefs (the Solicitor General’s, and the briefs filed by the parties), as well as the major amicus briefs. I’ve read the summaries of all of them, which was enough to give me no reason to read further in most cases.
An astounding number of amicus briefs have been filed in the four cases. It seems that just about everyone and their dog thinks that they have a point or two to make that will be the argument that carries the day.
I doubt that more than a few of the amicus will be read by anyone at the Court other than the Justices’ clerks, who will have to wade through them all to see if there is anything worth calling to their Justice’s attention. I can’t decide if I would go blind or go crazy first if I was stuck with reading them all, but the clerks are young and hardy, and get paid for it.
If anyone is interested in an intelligent summary of the major arguments back and forth in the briefs, SCOTUSblog has four summaries worth reading:
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part I, The couples’ views
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part II, The states’ views
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part III, Supporting the couples
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part IV, Supporting the state bans
It won’t take too long, and it will help sort out the oral arguments coming up next week.
posted by Jorge on
The argument goes that marriage equality will “devalue marriage”, leading straight men to lose interest in marrying, leading to more pregnancies outside of marriage, leading to more abortions. The lack of factual grounding and logical thinking at each step is obvious.
Factual grounding I agree with, but to be honest…
On second thought, I have no interest in putting lipstick on Mr. Schaerr and giving him a bath. His intellectual laziness disturbs me.
posted by Houndentenor on
So Rick Scott is against gay marriage but he’ll show up for the free food and beverages anyway? These people really have no shame. If I ever get married I will make it clear that if people don’t support what we’re doing, they shouldn’t come. A party is for those celebrating. No bigots, freeloaders or hypocrites allowed.
posted by Jorge on
A party is for those celebrating.
Houndentenor, does it not occur to you that perhaps the celebration is for the sake of the couple?
We cannot all be trailblazers like those bakers, florists, and photographers, secure in our knowledge and righteousness. Sometimes our encounter with humanity teaches us to doubt when good people do things we do not understand or agree with. This does not change the conviction in what is right. But it does mean a concession that it is better for 99 sinners to be happy than to unjustly condemn one innocent man. The risk of committing a greater harm is too high.
posted by Houndentenor on
Yes, the wedding is about the couple. I go to weddings because I want to celebrate with friends and relatives. If I didn’t not believe the marriage was valid, I would not attend. It’s bizarre that someone would go to a marriage of a gay couple but not support their right to marry? Does that make sense to you? Or for that matter I don’t understand how you can claim to love and care about people but insist they shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else? I have spent most of my life around social conservatives and this crap has never made sense to me. It finally occurred to me as an adult that it makes no sense to me because there is no sense in the making of their ideas about anything.
posted by Doug on
What is even more bizarre is a Senator being willing to attend a gay wedding at the same time he/she opposes same sex marriage while a florist is so doctrinaire as to refuse selling flowers to the couple.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
1. legal “briefs” are generally not actually brief. they tend to be quite long.
2. Again, we do have national elections. so a national poll on young conservatives dosent necessarily take into account a state by state or district by district approach.
3. A gay couple planning a wedding might believe that a GOP presidential candidate would be better “educated” by going to wedding. Elton John serms to have a similar assumption. He did one of Rush Limbaughs weddings and appeared on stage with Emenemiem.
posted by Lori Heine on
“…there is no sense in the making of their ideas about anything.”
Exactimundo. 🙂
posted by Jorge on
It’s bizarre that someone would go to a marriage of a gay couple but not support their right to marry? Does that make sense to you?
Perhaps I got confused over what you were trying to say, as I find your question very odd. Gay weddings have been happening for far longer than same sex marriage laws have been on the books. For a time many people insisted on calling them commitment ceremonies.
I do not recognize the distinction between a gay wedding and a gay commitment ceremony. To me they are both about a marriage. Others, and I assume Rick Perry is one of them, have the reverse opinion: what others call a gay marriage is not a true marriage, but it is as noble and laudable as a commitment ceremony sounds. It makes absolute total sense to me that someone who does not believe gay marriage is real would still want to support a gay couple being married. Because unlike in politics, in real life people face the question, so if it’s not a marriage, then what is it?
Marriage is far more a social construct than a legal status, and I happen to think it is more a divine construct than a legal status as well.
posted by Doug on
“Marriage is far more a social construct than a legal status. . . “.
If marriage is just a social construct, what about all the legal benefits and laws that accrue to married folks?
posted by Jorge on
What about them?
And what about gay weddings pre-dating gay marriage laws?
posted by Doug on
There were no gay wedding pre-dating gay marriage laws. Those were Commitment Ceremonies which carried NO legal significance except in the minds and hearts of those involved.
posted by Jorge on
Excuse me, Rick Scott. Whoever.
posted by ricport on
I think you are getting caught up in the LibDem hypocrisy that the Talibangelicals rage about. LibDems never miss an opportunity to mouth diversity, yet when an example like this happens, they’re the first ones to shut the doors on those who don’t agree. If I was getting married, I would definitely invite the likes of Scott, as long as I was convinced he would be appropriate, respectful, and not create a Westboro scene. Especially if the wedding is in a Christian church (am using that example as I am a Christian), I can’t think of better way to hold up the concept of “turning the other cheek” than by doing this. I also can’t think of a more in-your-face (without being cruel or rude) way to show people – and especially politicians – like Scott that all of that NOM propaganda is best left to the bottom of a birdcage than by showing two loving people making a solemn, lifetime commitment who are not dress wearers, leather-clad freaks, or any of the other stereotypes they love to perpetuate.
posted by Ricport on
The whole irony with the GOP right now is that they have devolved into this “arms race” to try and “out-conservative” each other and have only moved drastically far from the core principal of less government. Barry Goldwater (arguably one of the founding fathers of modern conservatism) warned decades ago about the toxic and corrosive effect the talibangelicals would have on the GOP:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater072894.htm
It’s sad to see his prophecy come true, for now at least. I think this is one of the few brief shining moments where everyone here can agree GOP acceptance of gay rights – at least gay marriage – is a foregone conclusion; it’s only a matter of when.
And we can all also be comforted with the fact that as long as the polls stay above 50%, we know ol’ Hildebeast will be on our side.
posted by JohnInCA on
“I think this is one of the few brief shining moments where everyone here can agree GOP acceptance of gay rights – at least gay marriage – is a foregone conclusion; it’s only a matter of when.”
I won’t agree to that. It’d be nice if it was, but conservatives (whatever branding they use at the time) have resisted civil rights for everyone else along the way and continue to this day. Women, racial minorities, religious minorities… all of that *should* have been a foregone conclusion. It’s obviously not.
So no. I won’t agree with that. You can think I’m terribly pessimistic for doing so, but there it is.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think this is one of the few brief shining moments where everyone here can agree GOP acceptance of gay rights – at least gay marriage – is a foregone conclusion; it’s only a matter of when.
I think that the time will come when the Republican Party will cease its war on equality, simply because it cannot long sustain itself as a national party if it does not do so, given the demographics of support for LGBT equality. It is not inevitable, though, that the party will moderate. The party could, instead, follow the path of the far right in Europe and devolve into a party focused on opposition to LGBT rights, women’s reproductive rights and immigration, and little else.
The problem in the Republican Party is obvious to all who will look: The conservative Christians President Reagan brought into the party have taken over the party’s political apparatus, and the party’s elected officials are, for the most part, captive to the conservative Christian obsession with junk science and toxic religion.
As Ricport pointed out, Barry Goldwater accurately predicted the future of the party (now the present) accurately, and the party has abandoned its defense of individual liberty almost entirely, unless an individual’s views and actions conform to the theocracy of conservative Christianity. It was an inevitable result. As Goldwater (who would not be welcome in the party today because of his positions in favor of “equal means equal” and women’s reproductive rights) pointed out, “On religious issues there can be little or no compromise.”
Conservative Christian domination of the Republican Party is a fact at present, and will not change unless and until Republicans who are not obsessed with conservative Christian cultural domination stand up, say “Enough!”, beginning the long, hard work of returning the party to concern for individual liberty.
It will not be easy and neither wishful thinking (which seems to be Stephen’s forte) nor “I personally support equality, but fund anti-equalty Republicans …” (David Koch’s practice) nor writing fine think-pieces that no one reads (Cato’s specialty) will cut it. It will require work, conviction and courage.
posted by Jorge on
I think the problem is more that the Republican party has become a two-headed hydra that’s gnawing on itself. Sure the conservative Christian types have more political fervor at the moment. I don’t much blame them; it’s reasonable to think that the other half hasn’t done much good for them. You will not find the other half of the party (however you define it) prevail in open combat. It will prevail by stabbing the religious conservative wing under the table. No one will really notice it unless they’re really paying attention.
And for that to happen I think perhaps the party needs to lose decisively while headed by a religious conservative leader. That has never happened.
posted by Lori Heine on
“It will require work, conviction and courage.”
Indeed it will. I personally need to figure out whether I think it’s worth my time to jump in at some point in a more active way, or stay on the (libertarian) sidelines.
I honestly haven’t decided what direction I will take. The picture looks different from one election cycle, and sometimes even one week, to the next. I’m not content with the way the political right has functioned for the past forty years or so, but I have long been disenchanted with the left.
This is why people like Tom S think I’m inconsistent. My politics have really changed very little since I was in at least my late twenties. But the political ground has become very unstable, and keeps shifting on every side. I still believe the same things I have for years, but it’s hard to tell where to put my allegiance and my efforts in collaboration with others when they keep changing.
What is the Republican Party? I truly believe that social conservatives are ruining this country. They’re the worst people in the nation, bar none. I will never make any political peace with people who want to destroy me. But will the rest of the political right ever be able to flush hard enough to get rid of them?
Ideally, if such an animal existed, I would fit best on the left end of the right. I think there needs to develop a faction that strives to preserve what’s best about our country and our society, and the Judeo-Christian tradition, while cleaning out the toxic elements. And learning from past mistakes.
The left must champion every cause that conservatives are too lazy or selfish to care about. That’s what has led to this problem. Then the left cynically exploits the very causes and people it purports to serve, while the right plays Rip Van Winkle until an issue simply cannot be ignored any longer. Then, to avoid looking totally foolish and keep losing elections, it belatedly changes.
I would be very interested in being part of any effort that might be made to remedy that situation. As I don’t know if one really exists (yet), I remain politically betwixt and between.
posted by Ricport on
Lori, I think we are very similar. I also feel lost in the political landscape. I guess I would term myself a “classic conservative,” as the REAL meaning of conservatism is less government, equal opportunity with favor for none, and strict law and order with favor for none, which would totally support gay rights, as all we are asking for is a level playing field.
But, as the Talibangelicals have seized the conservative movement and have turned it into a hypocritical, perverted mess, I could never support them for obvious reasons. But at least they are honest about it. They don’t like us, they don’t hide it, and they never will. Perverse as it may sound, I actually have respect for them because of this honesty.
But when speaking about the libs, I’m reminded of a famous quote by Oscar Wilde: “A true friend stabs you in the front.” This is no more true than when speaking about the Clintons, who for years have vacuumed up gay dollars only to pass DADT and DOMA, and who have now only “seen the light,” after, of course, the polls supporting gay marriage have topped 50%. As I said earlier, if (God forbid) Hildebeast becomes President, and if the polls magically showed a majority of the country wanted to round up all gay people and ship them off in boxcars, she’d be there at the depot to send us off.
I (and I hope most other gay voters) am also not a single-issue voter. There are some issues I’m to the right on (gay rights (obviously), death penalty; tax, Social Security and Medicare reform), and there are some other issues where I’m more to the left (want to see the burden of proof lowered and sentences raised for white-collar crimes, want welfare to help the working poor, decriminalizing marijuana, sensible restrictions on gun ownership).
I’m also royally pissed at the virtually absolute duopoly the two failed parties have over our political system, so I find myself voting more and more for third-party candidates more as a protest, and because I believe every revolution begins with one person. We desperately need more alternatives.
By the very nature of the word, conservatives are always going to be slower to change. This isn’t always a bad thing, as long as the change eventually occurs. The problem is, that at least on the issue of gay rights, the change is not happening fast enough, and probably won’t until the Talibangelicals die off in a relatively short period of time. It’s always much easier to go to your grave hating someone than realize your hatred turns out to be wrong (but this could also apply to the libs).
Lori, as the saying goes, the truth lies in the middle. The middle, by its very nature, is squishy. It involves compromise. It means you actually have to analyze a situation and challenge or moderate your view. It’s much easier for most people to (as you so correctly analogized) “pick the winning team,” and view the “opponents” as the enemy who must be destroyed at all costs. The fact that both parties have drifted so far to their ideological fringe merely shows that they haven’t gotten this simple concept and probably never will, unless they start running more Huntsmanns, Carpers and Bayhs and less Cruzes and Wasserman-Schultzes.
posted by Lori Heine on
Ricport, I absolutely agree. I’m glad you’re here.
When describing my politics, I commonly use the term “classical liberal,” which is the older term for “libertarian.” I don’t believe that liberalism and conservatism, in the classic and traditional sense, were ever as far apart as most people now see them as being.
I don’t believe in the whole “team sports, power game” concept of politics. I don’t think you do, either. That’s what so often gets both of us in trouble in commentary threads on this blog.
Some of the commenters here ask good questions, and provoke thought. Others simply want to quibble over whether a typo really counts as a proper typo. There are all sorts.
Again, it’s good to have you here. You add value to the mix.
posted by Francis on
You might want to add pseudohistory to the things these fundies are obsessed with. If they’re not glossing over the role slavery played in the civil war, they’re trying to drop Jefferson and Madison’s “separation of church and state” doctrine down the memory hole. Some of them have even attempted to make Moses a Founding Father!
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The most recent ABC/WP poll shows continued support for marriage equality, with no change in the basic pattern of support that has emerged over the years:
All Respondents – 61%
Democrats – 76%
Independents – 66%
Republicans – 34%
Age 18-39 – 74%
Age 40-64 – 56%
Age 65+ – 46%
The most telling statistic, though, is probably this one:
Conservative/Republican – 25%
which suggests that the party’s primary system, given the historic domination of conservative Christians in the Republican primary process, will continue to filter out pro-equality and moderate Republican candidates this election cycle.
posted by Dale of the Desert on
“Marriage is far more a social construct than a legal status, and I happen to think it is more a divine construct than a legal status as well.” – Jorge
For most of its history in western civilization, marriage in western civilization has been rooted in legal property and inheritance rights, designed for social control through organized power. Although the handful of biblical references to marriage clearly favor it (with the possible exception of St. Paul), it was not co-opted as a religious construct until the 12th century, even then in all likelihood designed foe the church to expand social power and control more than to dispense divine grace. If one chooses to believe that marriage is sacramental, that is well and good within the boundaries of particular religious constructs, but the institution of marriage continues to primarily serve the function of social cooperation and stability, thereby fostering life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.