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Posted on 01/02/2004 4:50:50 PM PST by Keyes2000mt
In a recent article, Bill Kristol wrote that Howard Dean would paint President Bush as a "constitution amending radical" for supporting a Constitutional Ban on gay marriage. Dean may make the point during the election if Bush comes out for the amendment, but is it reasonable?
If you go back to 1960 or even 1980, or 2000, where was the conservative call for a Federal Marriage amendment? It did not exist. Go back to the 1960s, where was the Conservative call for a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion? It was unheard of.
Why now are these so linked with Conservatism? The answer is that liberals have attempted to enforce cultural hegemony on the entire nation. They've succeeded in the case of abortion and unless Conservatives unite behind a proposal, they shall do the same with gay marriage.
Our founders showed their wisdom when they crafted the tenthj= amendment. They understood that there were cultural differences between Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, and all the other states. To force uniform national laws on all issues of significance on the whole country was to invite disunion.
The left in this century sought to radically redefine American culture through pushing the Gay Rights, Women's Liberation, and Pro-Abortion movements. They had two legitimate choices to address their concerns: 1) pursue their means in the State Legislatures allowing individual states to change their laws to meet their agenda, 2) use the federal democratic processes in amending the Constitution to change the law for all the land as the entire country could come together and raise their voice for abortion, gay rights, and equal rights for women.
Except for Women's rights, the left has rejected the pursuit of normal democratic means that served this country well for more than 150 years. Rather, they've used activist liberal judges as their foil with which they've brought all of America into the culture of death and with which they hope for us all to celebrate the gay culture of decadence as equal in every way to Heterosexual marriage.
The left is not interested in coexistence, but rather domination. While many cry for abortion and gay marriage to be "state's issues," it's too late for that. Most of us realize the truth. Any move to make these issues state's issues would require an honest agreement by both parties to keep it that way. Such an idea would require a change in the pathology and psychology of the left wing fringe groups to put the interests of the nation over their own parochial goals.
It is the left who has usurped the Democratic process. It failed to change the abortion laws in 40 separate states before they pursued Roe v. Wade and got seven men to play God. The left is seeking to impose a uniform agenda of gay marriage on the entire populace. Yet, they have found no state or the District of Columbia who would recognize them through the Democratic process. If I understand the left's definition of radical properly, conservatives are radicals because we propose to use the constitutionally prescribed amendment process rather than forcing our amendments through the court system.
Some may argue that Conservatives are no different than liberals in forcing their entire agenda on the whole country. I would refer those who argue this to the State of Nevada. In a county in Nevada, prostitution is legal. Where is the call for a constitutional amendment barring prostitution? No one has ever suggested it. While I would oppose legalizing prostitution in my community and would fight it's presence in that state, I and other conservatives support that state's right to make its own laws.
However, on many hot cultural issues of the day, states do not possess this freedom because the left has been leading us down the path to Civil War.
Like the South the 1850s who saw the need to take their slaves into everywhere in the Union, American liberals dream of Gay Marriage chapels and abortion clinics in every state. Abolitionist parties had failed prior to the South's strident insistence that they be able to carry their slaves everywhere in the Union, even states which prohibited slavery. Men of Conscience rose up to defend their way of life and culture from this usurpation. Divided by the slaveholding radicals, Americans elected Abraham Lincoln who promised to leave slavery alone in the South where it already existed and let Southerners have their slaves and live in peace. However, despite this assurance, the culture war exploded into the Civil War.
Conservatives and Liberals are crossing the Rubicon. We are in danger of seeing a second Civil War, far worst than the first because the radical left has abandoned the wisdom of the founding fathers in order to undemocratically facilitate their power grab.
Several counties, in fact. We's got ho's everywhere!
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The Rubicon was crossed long ago. It's only a matter of time.
L
While I agree with the author's main points, and think he generally makes them well, it doesn't help to end the op-ed with this ridiculous hyperbole. The American Civil War was one of the world's first "total wars," and (I think I'm correct in saying) was unmatched in the prodigiousness of shed blood until the first World War.
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