Posted on 10/17/2004 1:09:27 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
The third Bush-Kerry debate may not change the outcome of the presidential election in November. But it may well be remembered as a milestone in the struggle for gay equality and acceptance. Give the credit for that to John Kerry.
Toward the end of the debate, moderator Bob Schieffer asked both candidates if they believed homosexuality was a choice. President Bush said he didn't know. Kerry said that it is inborn, and cited an authority on the subject. "I think if you talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she'll say she is being who she was, she's being who she was born as," he said.
Why Cheney's daughter? Kerry knows lots of famous people who believe - as he says Mary Cheney believes - that they were born gay. He could have cited Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank or New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Both are public men who could offer personal testimony about the inborn nature of homosexuality.
But that wasn't the point Kerry wanted to make. He was crying Mary to send a message to presumably homophobic Christian voters: Just in case you hadn't heard, the vice president harbors a practicing lesbian in the bosom of his family.
Despite Kerry's angel-faced sanctimony, this was a piece of premeditated gay-baiting (John Edwards used the same gambit in his debate with Cheney) whose transparent purpose was to keep some of the GOP's evangelical voters from turning out on Nov. 2. This was a miscalculation.
Since the debate, the Christian right has been rallying to the side of Mary Cheney. Well-known political preachers like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have gone out of their way to defend her right to privacy. Conservative radio talk shows and Web sites have been flooded with denunciations of Kerry and support for Mary.
This reaction doesn't mean that the evangelical community has changed its doctrine, or its mind, on the sinful nature of homosexuality. It does reveal, however, that most born-again Protestants are not nearly as extreme - or as politically one-dimensional - as Kerry evidently imagined them to be.
Why this should come as a surprise to the Democratic candidate is a mystery. Kerry knows from his own experience that many practicing Catholics habitually vote for pro-choice candidates, even if they have been specifically warned by their priests that doing so would be a sin. In Massachusetts and around the country, Catholic liberals vote as liberals, not as Catholics.
The same is true of Jews. Israel is at war, and Bush is the strongest ally it has ever had in the White House. Ariel Sharon has done everything to communicate this short of singing "God Bless America" at the Republican convention. And still the majority of American Jewish Zionists will vote for Kerry. Why? Because they are liberal Democrats first, and politics trumps religion.
The same is true for evangelical conservatives. Would they prefer for Mary Cheney to be a happily married mother of five? Sure. Do they think she is a sinner? Probably. Will that keep them from voting for Bush and her father? Heck, no.
Politically, Kerry won't benefit from playing the Mary card. But that doesn't mean he hasn't accomplished something of value. Many conservative Christians are for the first time publicly embracing an avowed homosexual. This puts them in touch with their real priorities and values - including that cardinal Kerry virtue, nuance.
Mary Cheney may be gay, but it turns out there are worse things. At least she isn't a Democrat.
Kerry has been endorsed by the Film Actor's Guild.
Kerry doesn't get it. Love the sinner, hate the sin.
This writer is guilty of the same bigotry as Kerry: assuming that Evangelical Christians are bigots, but put politics first. That's a false analysis of their reaction. Evangelical Christians are by and large decent people who don't appreciate gay-baiting.
There's something about Mary...
This writer is every bit as much of an anti-Christian bigot as Kerry is. There is nothing new, strange, unprincipled or "nuanced" about the notion "hate the sin, love the sinner."
"Mary Cheney may be gay, but it turns out there are worse things. At least she isn't a Democrat."
Perhaps Christians simply understand that while homosexuality may be a sin, the Democrats are agents of the author of sin, himself.
A woman called the Howie Carr show about this and noted that the subject had already come up in the 2000 election. She said she was an Evangelical, and if Kerry was trying to influence Evangelical voters, "Does he think we're all stupid?"
Howie Carr: "Do you want the short answer? YES!"
Never has any group been so badly misjudged as Christian voters. No Christian would judge Cheney because he had a lesbian daughter. In fact, they wouldn't judge her either. Kerry's presumption he was going to take Christian votes from Bush with that little trick just shows how completely out of touch he is with non-Mass elitists. In Kerry's world if you aint rich you ain't worth nuthin.
Hopefully it doesn't "fire in his back". I don't think Theresa would be very happy about that.
That picture is so funny, and so clever. Had me neighing and rolling on the floor.
If you're for rape - while Oprah's looking at you like "wtf are you talkin' about?" - then don't vote.
Put another way:
Christians figure Mary Cheney might go to hell all by herself, but John Kerry will certainly take us there with him.
Bump!
It's about free will. God gave us free will, Kerry trod all over that in Mary Cheney's case. If she had wanted the issue made public, on a worldwide stage, it was her choice to do so, not Mr. Kerry's and not Mr. Edwards'. This is why the right to privacy was placed in our Bill of Rights, and considered as so important by the Founding Fathers of this nation. If God gave us free will, we have no right to mess with any person's free will...or privacy... in such a fashion. John-John not only violated her God-given rights, they violated her Constitutional rights.
The crassnes of the act of doing such a thing is very telling on it's own. It reveals the characters of the candidates and of their politics. Those politics apparently care little for other's privacy, nor for The Constitution.
I pray we don't ever find out...:-\
Prime Minister Sharon, if you're available, we'd appreciate some help...
* grin *
Remember in the 90's the liberal line about how conservative Christians were "easily led" by right-wing talk show hosts?
bump
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