Posted on 03/22/2013 7:16:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Just because things can be put on the same list doesn’t mean they are necessarily similar. My attic contains within it thousands of comic books, an inflatable bed, a few jigsaw puzzles, some family pictures, and a Frampton Comes Alive! album. These things are, roughly speaking, in the same location, but they’re hardly of equal value, importance, or utility.
I bring this up for the simple reason that we’re hearing a lot about how the GOP must deal with “abortion and gay marriage” as if they are almost the same issue.
Well, in my house, I hear about my dog and my mortgage a lot. They’re both important — and complicated in their own ways — but they aren’t all that similar.
I think some liberals and some conservatives like to lump all social issues together, at least in part because they find their opponents’ positions on them so unfathomable. It’s like if an alien showed you a fnerk, a thrampahorn, and a zizzenbozzle, you’d be forgiven for assuming they’re all somehow related to each other.
In fact, for a long time the shorthand for social issues was “God, guns, and gays.” And a lot of analysts thought they would move all together. It turns out that various social issues stand or fall on their own.
If you’d predicted in the late 1980s that the country would become more pro-life, more pro-gun, and more pro-gay, the experts would’ve laughed at you. It drives some older liberals crazy that some young liberals are insufficiently pro-choice and it vexes some older conservatives that some young conservatives are insufficiently anti–gay marriage.
I myself have grown both more pro-life and more sympathetic to gay marriage.
I’ve been in favor of civil unions for more than a decade — back when it was considered a left-wing position, not a fallback right-wing one. And I’d probably still prefer civil unions if we had settled on some arrangement that conferred the economic and legal benefits of traditional marriage without calling it marriage. Still, gays have an entirely understandable reluctance to settle for that and, besides, I think the argument over whether or not to call civil unions “marriage” has been all but lost, though there’s a glimmer of hope the decision might eventually be left to the states (which I favor).
As for abortion, my migration has less to do with religious arguments and more to do with my growing distrust of the government. Who is and who isn’t a human being with unalienable rights is just about the biggest question there is. And the fact that the answer is usually obvious — that guy, not that fly — only makes it more important.
The government has an obligation to protect the life and liberty of the subset of human beings we call “Americans.” If you commit a crime that obligation changes, of course, since the government also has an obligation to protect the rest of us from those who would do us harm.
Well, I consider a fetus a human being. It has done no harm, nor has it committed a crime punishable by death. More important, I don’t like it when governments start getting clever about who counts as full human beings and who doesn’t (See: Slavery, U.S.; or Holocaust, Nazi). There are few areas where a bright line is more vital or necessary. (I bet it won’t be very long before science is able to tell us whether some fetuses will grow up to be gay or not. The politics of abortion will suddenly get more interesting, I suspect.)
But once you’re born, and — hopefully — properly raised, the government’s chief obligation is to stay out of your way — whether you’re straight or gay — so you can pursue happiness as you define it — not how, say, Michael Bloomberg or Pat Robertson defines it.
Which brings me back to gay marriage. Opponents of same-sex marriage insist gays have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex as anyone else. It’s a clever line, but it overlooks the fact that romantic love has been the paramount reason for marriage for quite some time. Telling people they’re free to be unhappy isn’t all that persuasive.
The whole point of the American way is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So, come to think of it, maybe gay marriage and abortion have more in common than I thought.
— Jonah Goldberg is the author of the new book The Tyranny of Clichés.
republicans shouldn't even be discussing these issues. Shunning them will take away their power.
There are more important things to be discussing right now. Put the important issues in the headlines.
This is a big problem with republicans. They let the left set the agenda. Why not just ignore the left and talk about those things that matter to the American people instead?
Homosexual pseudo marriage? really? Is that the biggest problem in America today? Queers getting a piece paper to have kinky sex so they feel normal? Really? Seriously????
Get over it. Move on. Talk about something that matters for gosh sakes! Republicans are so stupid to fall for these low life traps.
.
And you're so naive to think that that's all it will entail? WAKE UP!!!!!
The imposition of same-sex "marriage" WILL affect ALL of us profoundly, whether you know it now or not. It is the current spear tip of the comprehensive liberal agenda, fiscal as well as social.
Again, WAKE UP!
Well Johah,
If you had any morality at all, you’d see that they are, in terms of immorality, one and the same.
Yes, two separate issues in terms of behaviors and actions, but in terms of what is really important, each in their own way are each very destructive of our culture and peoples lives.
I've been saying this for nearly 20 years. I've had people even tell me that I'm being ridiculous, interpreting as "So, what? Abortion is bad unless he's gay?"
I wouldn't be surprised if we can already tell but they fear this very result.
The rest of the country at large could care less what gays want to do to each other, we just don't want to hear about it!
Try to claim two sodomites a "marriage" and you'll lose whatever goodwill you have left in the Republican Party.
It's hello third party for the Republicans will truly join the Whigs or the Bull Moose Parties, seen any of them lately?
“Telling people they’re free to be unhappy isn’t all that persuasive.”
What a ridiculous thing to say. We do this ALL THE TIME, and have been doing it since the DAWN OF TIME. If screwing a dog makes someone happy, are we wrong to tell them they can’t? If screwing a family member makes someone happy, are we wrong to tell them they can’t?
The entire concept of the law is denying people what makes them happy in defense of our society’s well-being. Kleptomaniacs love stealing. The Mafia love dumping people in the East River. Muslims love marrying six wives and threatening them with death if they ever disobey. The fact is, human beings are not good creatures, and naturally want to do unacceptable things. How do we judge what is unacceptable? We take that from human experience, and from our creator. We then pass laws that govern our society, that everyone has to obey for the good of that society.
We don’t sentence homosexuals to death (which they do in some countries) or prison (which they do in some countries).
As with other things, if homosexuals want to marry, why don’t they just leave, go to some socialist European country? They wouldn’t because those countries have civil societies in total collapse. Why is that? Because of crap like gay marriage, everyone gets a trophy, drive-in abortions, and forcing kids to shower with transgender freaks.
The agenda is the destruction of the family resulting in total dependence on the State.
The left looks at 1984 as an instruction manual.
You are correct. I wish it was only "issuing a piece of paper". In every state that has passed homosexual marriage laws, EVERYTHING about homosexuality is normalized. They starting teaching the normalness of homosexuality in kindergarten. Parents have to legally be referred to as "Parent A" and "Parent B"; kids are not allowed to refer in school to "mom and dad" so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of kids in same sex marriage households. And anyone who refers to the homosexual lifestyle as anything less that normal in such states is guilty of hate speech. It will likely include churches as well
I wish this was only a "live and let live" situation; but it ain't.
City Health Officials Warn Some (Gay) Men on Lethal Strain of Meningitis
The homosexuals are dead within hours. You can't war with nature and expect to win.
Yeah, I just saw that.
Don’t spread the word. I want it to remain covert. Yes, I want the promiscuous fags to die.
From what I have seen on gays there is no-one effectively arguing why that lifestyle is bad.
Only one side makes the case : that its a 'neutral' (not bad not good just different) condition that people are born with like race or sex and cant change, and that they must live it to its fullest to be fulfilled and happy. And that they hurt no one by doing that.
Adoption was first, then marriage, then the military, with vaguely written anti-discrimination laws anlong the way,
Republicans have not been countering it. Not Bush, no one in last years primary. Certainly not in a way intended to convince others. Clinton signed DOMA not Bush,
Only one side showed up for this fight.
Transsexuals are next.
I do not consider myself pro-gay. I could care less what my neighbors do in their bedrooms. That does not make me ‘pro-gay’.
Another fool, professing himself to be wise, but given over to a reprobate mind.
They are EXACTLY the same issue: Obedience to God or Rebellion against God.
On the other side ....try .. How about the public schools teaching your kids that what they ‘do in their bedroom’ which is NOT what what I ‘do in my bedroom’ makes them a special protected class of human beings.
Doing drugs in my BR is not protected, risky dangerous practices in my bedroom is protected. My having a banned gun for my protection in my bedroom is not protected.
I dont have a right to have my Texas gun license honored BY states like NY, but I do have a right to have my Maryland sodomy license honored BY Georgia.
You see the problem? I am not gay. I have less rights. I am considered 3/5ths of a gay. (I should do this for a living)
Please. Oppose gay marriage if you want, but not for fake reasons. There’s been gay marriage in Massachusetts for eight years and heterosexual life is going strong.
I spent weekends at the beach a month apart last summer in Texas and Cape Cod, the latter with (what seemed like) half the families Boston suburbs. From any measure you had to give the win to the Bostonians: fewer single-parent families, fewer tattoos, fewer grossly obese kids (which is a manifestation of disordered homes or negligent parenting), etc. Whatever indoctrination was going on in the classroom didn’t seem to keep the 15 year old boys from calling their parents mom and dad, or keeping their attention on the 15 year old girls.
Only the flowery perception of “gay marriage” has garnered greater acceptance, not the appetite for anal and oral sex.
>> Oppose gay marriage if you want, but not for fake reasons.
Sans-Culotte is correct: Law that promotes homosexual “marriage” is law designed to persecute those that refuse to support and service homosexual behavior.
Your waterfront analysis is hardly a true measure of the consequences.
You cite Massachusetts as some sort of model for family life? Tell me, how many of these ‘strong heterosexual’ men have stood up against the attempt to make their daughters shower with boys who call themselves transgender? Few that I can see. It looks to me like the majority are the most pathetic men in the country. I would sooner take the UKs model for society than the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. It’s not long before pedophilia is named as something to be ‘understood’ there.
Guess what? We did fine without this garbage for thousands of years. Now, Western Europe and the USA have become ‘tolerant’, and our civil societies are collapsing. You can defend it if you want, but ‘gay marriage’ is a direct assault on our culture and traditions by a tiny group of radical deviants. It won’t be long before the incest community starts to organize.
The “gay rights” agenda has one major end goal -
criminalize Christianity.
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