Posted on 08/31/2009 8:11:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fifteen years ago, in his first book, Dead Right, David Frum identified several challenges facing Republicans. He cited the “fundamental contradiction” of William Weld, at the time governor of Massachusetts, who thought he could be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Frum recounted how this Republican blue-blood, unable to reconcile the two positions, evolved into a thoroughgoing liberal who pushed through huge budget increases, in much the same way that John Stuart Mill, who objected to the social conservatism of his day, ended up a socialist.
Had this disconnect been limited to one governor in one state, Frum’s point might have become an historical footnote. Yet from Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey to Arnold Schwarzenegger of California — not to mention political operatives like John McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt — influential voices continue to maintain that the Weld synthesis not only is plausible but also holds electoral promise. These Republicans resent the presence of social conservatives in the party and, even more, the fact that in 30 states social conservatives have succeeded in defending the legal status of matrimony against elites who want America to be more like socially liberal Europe.
Even many Republicans with no beef against social conservatives don’t consider marriage a winning issue. But as Maggie Gallagher pointed out recently in National Review (August 10), public support for the traditional legal definition of marriage remains strong, and indeed has increased — to nearly 60 percent — since Perez Hilton heaped public scorn on beauty queen Carrie Prejean in April.
So why aren’t the geniuses at the Republican National Committee taking advantage of this issue, in Gallagher’s words, “to elect our friends and defeat our enemies”? The Democrats surely understand the game, yet Michael Steele has remained silent on the marriage battles taking place in various states this year. Nor has he sought any photo-op to demonstrate solidarity with African-American clergymen who are behind the effort to allow the voters — and not the city council — to determine the legal definition of marriage in the District of Columbia.
What drives the shortsightedness is that far too many in the GOP — from the business crowd to the Washington insiders, from the conservative think tanks to the talking heads on Fox News — have been slow to learn that social conservatism and economic conservatism are joined at the hip. Without the social ideal of marriage between husband and wife, described by Wendell Berry as “the fundamental connection without which nothing holds,” the prospects for limited government, civil society independent of the state, and a robust, free-market economy go out the window.
As we can see from what has happened in Old Europe, state creation of same-sex marriage has seriously undermined marriage as a social institution. Data from the World Values Survey and the International Social Survey Programme show that countries with same-sex marriage demonstrate the lowest levels of support for traditional marriage. Citizens in these countries are significantly less likely than their counterparts in the U.S. and Australia to agree that adults who desire children should wed; they are significantly more likely to approve of cohabitation without marital intentions and to consider divorce to be the best solution to marital problems.
According to NRO contributor Stanley Kurtz, marriage, and especially married parenthood, are disappearing in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, countries that adopted same-sex marriage between 1989 and 1994. Kurtz says this “culture-shifting event” has pushed rates of unwed childbearing over the top in Scandinavia. Today, births to unwed mothers exceed 55 percent of total births in Sweden and 50 percent in Norway. In Denmark, more than 60 percent of first-born children have unwed parents.
Europe’s dismissal of the social ideal of traditional marriage comes right out of the Marxist playbook. Karl Marx considered matrimony to be as evil as private property, and he called for “the abolition of the family” in a post-capitalist society, with children being raised communally rather than by their married mothers and fathers.
If the Left understands the relation between the family order and the economic order, why don’t Republicans? Even language affirms the connection: The term economy originates from a Greek word, oikos, which means household. Adam Smith noted the interplay between marriage and the market in The Wealth of Nations. Like Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, the Scottish moral philosopher was impressed with what he saw in America in 1776. He noticed how men and women on this side of the Atlantic were twice as likely to marry — and at younger ages — and had twice as many children as their European counterparts.
Smith did not consider all living arrangements equal; he predicted that the exalted status of marriage and children in the colonies would pay economic dividends. Despite Britain’s superior wealth at the time, Smith saw North America “advancing with much greater rapidity to the further acquisition of riches.” He even claimed that “the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase in the number of its inhabitants,” which he linked to a factor even then considered bourgeois, “a numerous family of children.”
More recently, Gary Becker has explained why natural marriage holds such promise. His Treatise on the Family asserts that the household anchored on the union of husband and wife is the most productive and efficient of all living arrangements — including single, cohabitating, and divorced — largely because of the sexual division of labor that maximizes production in the market and in the home. He further claims that homosexual unions fall short, as “generally they have a less extensive division of labor and less marital-specific capital than heterosexual marriages” and do not produce what really matters, children.
Mae West used to say, “A man in the home is worth two in the street.” From instilling the rules of cooperation, to modeling the relation between the sexes, to nurturing human and social capital, to helping adults and children think long-term, to solving the universal problem of dependency, marriage does what no other social institution can do. Because it predates society and the state, wedlock actually creates, builds, and renews society. Same-sex marriage — a construct that depends on the state for its very existence — can never duplicate these functions.
Of course, insisting that marriage law should reflect what nature, history, and reason affirm risks offending not so much homosexuals as cultural elites who care little about America. For these reasons, the effort to preserve a social institution that is a critical part of American exceptionalism, including this country’s economic prowess, deserves greater support from the GOP establishment and from Republican business interests. Given how a rejection of the marriage ideal would make the U.S. look like Europe, the stakes could not be higher.
— Robert W. Patterson, a research fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, served in the George W. Bush administration as a speechwriter at the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.
You can’t separate or compartMENTALise what works away. You need BOTH components for a healthy thricing society - fiscal and social conservatiism. THIS is what made America great - not skin color and ethincity and perverted family values.
Europe’s dismissal of the social ideal of traditional marriage comes right out of the Marxist playbook. Karl Marx considered matrimony to be as evil as private property, and he called for “the abolition of the family” in a post-capitalist society, with children being raised communally rather than by their married mothers and fathers.
If the Left understands the relation between the family order and the economic order, why don’t Republicans?
Republicans have become COWARDS. They don’t want to affend perverts and the socially rebellious. Even McPain supports queers in our military. It’s Republican like McPain that continue to play into Marxism.
Republicans (Conservatives) work for a living.
Excellent article. Good to see the argument of Adam Smith that the Wealth of Nations is inextricably linked to the increase in population. Adam Smith was not a disciple of Malthus.
I”m always puzzled as to why conservatives want government involved in something as personal as marriage. Look, we all know what the Bible says marriage is, and we all know that homosexuality is a sin, with or without them trying to achieve some legal status to their relationship, all I’m saying is, I don’t want the government involved in anything it wasn’t intended for...any legal move isn’t going to stop homosexuality or make it a crime. If we’re not going to make homosexuality a crime, then at least keep them from having anything to do with children, make them all register as sexual predators instead. That would be the best law we could make regarding homosexuals.
This article also didn’t mention an important instance or example of this sentiment, the fact that the state of CALIFORNIA voted to change it’s constitution to defend traditional marriage. If the radicals can’t win that fight in that state(!), then social conservativism is definately not dead, as “progressives” would like us to believe.
What allows every man is, in his liberty to choose homosexuality, and then to prevent as best he can the rest of the society from holding to the God given command to be the husband/wife of one person, to multiple and fill the earth.
Man's desire to be GOD is at the heart of it all. We are not God. We do have liberty to choose ... right or wrong. Blessing or curse ...
Today we are making wrong to be RIGHT. Nonsense!
God is God ... there is no other. What is wrong with us is moving into agreement or being seduced by Satan to indulge all our impulses. No matter that it is Sin. Against the commandment of God.
We are reaping the results of what we have and are sowing.
When we turn from God to disobedience deliberately ... we are thumbing our nose at God.
“God is not mocked. ... What we sow ... IS what we reap.” to our own destruction. Rebellion is what was first began by Lucifer and has enticed men from the beginning to their doom eternally.
Wake up and read the Holy Bible. God will meet you there. to continue down this path is madness and worse ... not for this life only, but eternity in HELL.
God is forgiving to those who turn to Him in sincerity asking forgiveness, surrendering their life to Him, and turning from their rebellion: to a renewing of their minds ... becoming in the image of Jesus Christ.
While there is yet time ... come to Jesus our Lord and Savior, redeemer and friend, I pray. Amen.
I consider myself a Jefferson Conservative, a Christian and I’m no fan of gay marriage, but I think we are approaching hypocrisy when we talk about outlawing gay marriage or making it a crime. Frankly, I think it’s keeping us from gaining a lot of allies, who, while they share our view of government, do not share the view that we can ban others from living their lives as they please so long as they don’t cause harm.
We say the government has no right to interfere in private lives. Well, what is the government but a bunch of individuals? We’re individuals too, so it can be said that do not have the right to interfere in the private lives of others as well. And if, for example, gun control supporters have no right to force their views on those of us who own guns, by what right do we force our views of marriage on homosexuals? And what doors are we opening when we say the majority can vote not to allow gays to marry? If the majority can do that, what else can it do?
The only problem I can see with gay marriage is government, in it’s neverending quest to get votes, doing a repeat of what the Civl Rights movement started. If we can prevent that, then what is wrong with allowing homosexuals to marry? It doesn’t break anyone’s leg or pick their pocket. If it’s a sin, it’s on their heads, not ours. Does God not say “Vengence is mine” and “By what manner you judge, you shall be judged”? It’s His place to judge and punish, not ours.
Please don’t consider me a traitor to the cause, but I put this up only in the interest of helping our party. Believe it or not, there are freedom-loving people out there who hate big brother, but consider conservatives little better than the democrats because of our views on gay marriage and abortion (abortion is something I’ll cover another time). I’m not saying we need to comprimise our views, but we need to understand that we don’t have any more right to force them on others as those we attack for doing so.
Oh, they can roost alright. But as far as doing anything useful . . . . . .
I think Malthus had some disciples . . . but none who practiced what they preached.
Marriage is a vow. Once vows were allowed to be broken thru divorce... it all became a slippery slope. The first “gay” marriages didn’t involve homosexuals but celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor. Or was it Henry VIII?
I would take it back to Luther and the Reformation. I think he was the one who did away with marriage as a sacrament. And now the Lutherans have voted for Gay marriage and Gay Clergy. Kinda makes sense.
It’s a sacred vow, for better or worse, in riches or rags, health and sneeze. Once that was loosened... and once celebrities made breaking it whimsical and popular... why shouldn’t the gays get in on the act? If the likes of a Zsa Zsa Gabor can get divorced 7 times (or 8 or 9) what’s to stop Horace and Bob from wanting to participate in this utterly desacralized stuff? They like each other too!
Maybe I belong in the Middle Ages, but I’m convinced that underneath it all, “gay” marriage - “gay” in the old-fashioned sense of the term was a long time in the making.
Marriage is already destroyed anyway, There is NO incentive for young men to consider Marriage in this current cultural climate.
I am, sad to say, in agreement with you. Traditional marriage died a long time ago, gay marriage is simply the libs’ attempt to put the last nail in the coffin. I wish conservatives were just as passionate about returning marriage to a true, binding covenant as they are about preventing this new abomination. Until then, there’s too little benefit, and too much risk for men getting “married” in America today.
As for rights, homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals.
Your, we say the government has no right to interfere in private lives smacks of libertarian nonsense.
“There is NO incentive for young men to consider Marriage in this current cultural climate.”
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What? You think it is better to be a single man, living for his own pleasures than to get married, have children, get divorced, pay child support, lose a job and go to jail for failure to pay child support while your ex takes off to another state with the children? What kind of madman are you John Will?
The issue is not whether same-sex marriage should be a 'crime', but rather whether anybody should be compelled to acknowledge such unions as marriages. I wish conservatives would recognize this, and put forth the issue in such terms. Leftists have gained some ground on the issue as declaring it to be one of "freedom". Conservatives need to recognize and declare that real freedom means allowing people and companies to decide whether or not they wish to attach any significance to same-sex unions, and that proponents of "same-sex marriage" seek to force people to honor unions they would not otherwise choose to recognize.
[i]I”m always puzzled as to why conservatives want government involved in something as personal as marriage.[/i]
If marriage were merely a private matter why do you have to register with the state, and why does the state provide benefits? The rationale, and this you can see in the Reynolds decision is that one of the powers of the federal government is to regulate marriage. Now the argument in Reynolds is that the state has the responsibility to uphold marriage between a man and a woman for the same reason they uphold laws against assault or murder. They recognise that it is essential to public order to preserve the family. Why do you think Marxists are going so hard at this principle? They recognise that in order to have a revolution you must first detach competing ideologies and commitments that separate a person from the party.
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