Posted on 05/02/2013 3:46:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan's daughter, recently speculated on where her father might stand on same-sex marriage. Politico published her thoughts under the headline, "Patti Davis says Reagan wouldn't have opposed gay marriage."
The impact of the article was immediate. A quick Google search yielded multiple follow-up articles and blog posts. Liberals nationwide were off and running with a new same-sex marriage endorsement: this one from Reagan, the conservative's conservative.
This is not the first time liberals have rushed to recast Reagan according to their policy preferences. Immediately after his death in June 2004, he was trotted out as a poster-boy for embryonic stem-cell research.
Please, not so fast.
In Davis' defense, she starts with a crucial point about her father, one liberals had utterly refused while the man was alive: "He was a very tolerant person."
Indeed, Reagan was tolerant -- on religion, on race, on ethnic differences, on differences of opinion on many things, and also toward gays. As Davis notes, "He did not have prejudices against gay people." Davis gives just a few of many examples.
But she then goes where I don't think we should. She states of her father and same-sex marriage: "I don't think he would stand in the way of it, at all. I don't think he would stand in the way of two people wanting to make a commitment to one another."
Davis then uses an argument that is libertarian (which Reagan was not), and which fails to understand the essence of conservatives' objection to same-sex marriage: "I also think because he wanted government out of peoples' lives, he would not understand the intrusion of government banning such a thing. This is not what he would have thought government should be doing."
The problem with that statement, applied to the same-sex marriage debate, is this: Conservatives object to the federal government rendering unto itself the unprecedented ability to redefine marriage. Such is a massive step toward government intervention (one that should worry libertarians), toward powerful government, toward big government -- not restrained and limited government.
It is a step that breaks entirely new ground in not only American history but human history, one with unimaginable and extraordinary effects yet to come on the family, the culture, the economy, government services and (among others) the court system.
The essence of conservatism is to preserve and conserve time-tested values that have endured for good reason and for the best of society and for order. Conservatives -- which is what Reagan was -- aim to conserve. By their nature and definition, conservatives do not rush into radical changes or what they fear may be another fad or fashion or popular demand. They also, by their definition, ground their ideals in both natural law and biblical law.
I know that secular liberals don't want to hear religious arguments against same-sex marriage, but, if we're talking about Reagan (and conservatives), we cannot exclude them.
Contrary to the image of him as president, Reagan was very religious and would not have so easily consented to a culture suddenly demanding the right to redefine what the scriptures (Old Testament and New Testament) say clearly about a man and a woman leaving their parents and coming together to form one flesh in marriage.
Reagan's religious roots were deep, inculcated by his mother, an extremely devout, traditional Christian, and others who profoundly influenced him in Dixon, Illinois, in the 1920s. He said that "everything" he learned about the values that shaped his life and presidency he learned back in Dixon. It was his "inheritance," one that never left him. Needless to say, Reagan did not learn to support same-sex marriage in Dixon.
Moreover, Reagan was unwavering in his conviction of the importance of a father and a mother raising children and the next generation of American citizens and understood marriage as a vital bond between a man and a woman.
To cite just one example from the final days of his presidency (January 12, 1989), Reagan insisted that "we must teach youngsters the beauty of the loving, lifelong relationship between husband and wife that is marriage."
Yes, Reagan was tolerant of gay people -- as is everyone I know who opposes same-sex marriage -- but that in no way means he would have advocated redefining marriage. Toleration of something certainly does not automatically translate into advocating its legalization.
We could list innumerable things that we tolerate -- including from friends and family and loved ones -- but wouldn't argue legalizing. Even then, that's not quite the issue. The issue, after all, isn't whether homosexuality should be legal (no one objects to that) but whether marriage will now begin a long process of continual redefinition.
It's a form of intellectual laziness for liberals/progressives to reflexively assume that anyone who disagrees with them on redefining marriage is a recalcitrant bigot with no possible legitimate reasons.
After all, same-sex marriage opponents are adhering to the prevailing definition of marriage according to its literal and ancient roots; they believe in the cross-cultural norm that humanity has adhered to since the dawn of humanity, to a human understanding as old as the Garden of Eden. It's remarkably short-sighted to dismiss them as hopeless bigots.
That brings me back to Ronald Reagan.
It's funny, people on the political left spent eight years calling Reagan a bigot. When liberals weren't denouncing him as an unregenerate racist -- the single most unfair charge unceasingly flung at Reagan -- they were saying that he didn't like gay people and did nothing about AIDS because he was happy to let gays die.
Davis remembers this well, as she does the vicious accusation that her father was a nuclear warmonger. To say that liberals were unhinged in their nastiness to Reagan is insufficient. Now, in his death, they'd like to remold him in their own image, crowning him a poster boy for same-sex marriage.
The simple truth is that Reagan was a committed and principled conservative who had thoughtful and firmly grounded reasons for his positions. That, too, ironically, is a fact that liberals ignored, caricaturing Reagan as an idiot, a simpleton, an "amiable dunce," as Clark Clifford famously called him.
He would not have merrily hopped on the same-sex marriage bandwagon without first carefully considering how the issue fit with his understanding of the laws of nature and nature's God, of the first things and first principles that conservatives of Reagan's generation spent years discussing at great length in their books and publications and conferences.
Could we at least agree on this much?
Well, if Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy did Reagan’s thinking, maybe Patti is right.
Ronald Reagan said that his greatest regret was that Patti and Ron were not Christians. He didn’t worry much about their leftist politics, he had many liberal friends, but was very concerned about their souls.
Reagan was a great man, but he had to adopt to find a real son and I can’t say much for his daughter either.
I am certain Reagan was accepting of queers, No way you can work in the land of fruits and nuts without at least accepting them as co-workers. Hollywood was chock full of queers in Reagans time, and still is. It’s like a plague out there.
That doesn’t mean he was willing to accept same sex marriage.
Interesting read - on Reagan, and on the proper libertarian view is of gay marriage. I agree with Kengor: a proper libertarian view would never endorse the government coming in an post facto defining any contract that millions of people have already entered into - nor would the libertarian view endorse post facto a governmetn redefining a word millions of people understand as a particular thing.
REAGAN would have believed the Bible and shunned pop culture... unlike Cheney.
LLS
Correction: President Reagan did believe the Bible
Oh please...I liked Reagan but he did more to gut the institution of marriage than the homosexuals have.
While Reagan was a friend to many homosexuals and did not support California banning homosexuals from teaching, he clearly spoke out on his opposition to "gay marriage" and the "gay movement":
"Society has always regarded marital love as a sacred expression of the bond between a man and a woman. It is the means by which families are created and society itself is extended into the future. In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is the means by which husband and wife participate with God in the creation of a new human life. It is for these reasons, among others, that our society has always sought to protect this unique relationship. In part the erosion of these values has given way to a celebration of forms of expression most reject. We will resist the efforts of some to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality."These quotes clearly shows that his opposition to banning homosexuals from teaching DID NOT extend to a proselytizing gay movement or a gay corruption of the institution of marriage. It was no more than a Don't Ask Don't Tell position for teachers."My criticism is that [the gay movement] isn’t just asking for civil rights; it’s asking for recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I."
Reagan got along very well with Ron Jr. Patti was always the problem. Why didn't she go to bat for her father when he was president, saying that he was tolerant? The attacks on him from the Left about AIDS and his wanting to kill gay people was greatly untrue.
Right, she knows exactly what he would do now ~ 25 years after he left office.
He still does... and he is with the men that wrote it.
LLS
...says the divorced and remarried Reagan.
*rme*
Sorry, but people often point to what Jesus said about man and woman getting married but leave out what He has to say about divorce. Freepers hate abortion and the gay agenda, but a lot of them love them some divorce. I am allowed to have an opinion about that.
Great bit of comedy by Patti, who spent very little time with her Father until the end, then she realized he was fading.
I detest this twit, so shallow and souless.
I don’t think Reagan would have been a supporter of same-sex marriage. But I also don’t think he would have supported anything at the federal level to prevent it since he was a small-government conservative and a supporter of the 10th Amendment.
Reagan did not want the divorce. It was his 1st wife who sued for divorce because she didn't like him devoting so much time to cleaning the Communist out of the Actors' union. From Wikipedia:
"Following arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties..."
That is not so clear. More than merely not supporting, Reagan spoke of actively resisting what society can not condone. From full Reagan quotes in post #9:
"...We will resist the efforts of some to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality.""My criticism is that [the gay movement] isn’t just asking for civil rights; it’s asking for recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I."
How? I’d really like to know.
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