Posted on 06/08/2015 7:00:42 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Speaking on Fox News Channel’s The Five, pundit Greg Gutfeld said that “gay marriage, in my opinion, is a conservative idea.” He noted that the left “generally hates traditions” and is all about “breaking with traditions,” and that gay marriage offers conservatives an opportunity to “embrace a tradition” that strengthens families and communities.
I should acknowledge that Gutfeld spoke without notes, unscripted, live and off-the-cuff. I often talk with inexactness when I’m speaking live. Live speaking is a perfect venue to make mistakes. It’s easier to type your thoughts and have the benefit of reflection, revision, and a word processor.
That said, let’s go with Gutfeld’s words, because they do represent a position held by some conservatives, and especially younger conservatives.
With all respect to Greg Gutfeld, who I usually agree with, gay marriage is absolutely not a conservative idea. Not unless, as liberals do with marriage, one redefines conservatism.
How is that? What is conservatism? That itself can be problematic. If you ask 10 self-identified conservatives for a definition, you might get 10 different answers. This much, however, can be said:
Conservatism aims to conserve the time-tested values, ideas, and principles that have been sustained over time by previous generations and traditions. (Here, a crucial correction to Greg Gutfeld: gay marriage is not a tradition.) These are values, ideas, and principles—usually with a Judeo-Christian basis—that have endured for good reason and for the best of society, citizens, country, culture, and order. That’s a brief summation that the late Russell Kirk, probably conservatism’s preeminent philosophical spokesman, would endorse—as would Ronald Reagan, the face of modern conservatism.
In an important speech at CPAC in February 1977, Reagan stated this: “Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations—found through the often bitter testing of pain or sacrifice and sorrow.”
That’s a solid definition of conservatism. Gay marriage, merely by its total newness alone, fails that rudimentary definition. Gay marriage has never been done before. One would never expect a conservative to rush into something as utterly unprecedented—and that directly repudiates the laws of nature and nature’s God—as this completely novel concept called “gay marriage.” Same-sex marriage not only revolutionizes marriage but also human nature generally and family specifically, the latter of which conservatives have always understood as the fundamental building block of civilization.
One would expect a progressive to support redefining marriage, because for progressives, everything is always in a state of never-ending, always-evolving flux. Progressives have no trouble rendering unto themselves the ability to redefine human life itself. Redefining marriage is small potatoes. A progressive can wake up tomorrow and conjure up a new “right” over a grande skim latte at Starbucks. For secular progressives especially, there is no absolute, set standard for things like marriage or, really, even for right or wrong. They are relativists who don’t subscribe to established absolutes. Redefine marriage? Sure, says the progressive. Redefine family, parenthood, motherhood, fatherhood, womanhood, manhood, gender? Sure, says the progressive.
For conservatives, however, this is unthinkable. Indeed, a conservative cannot even “conserve” when it comes to gay marriage, because gay marriage is an untried idea unimaginable by any people until only very recent days.
To be sure, conservatives, especially those whose conservatism springs from religious underpinnings, should recognize and respect the inherent human dignity of all gay people—being fellow human beings made in the image of God—and should not mistreat them. But those conservatives cannot, in turn, blatantly violate (if not blaspheme) the teachings of their faith and their God on the sanctity of male-female matrimony.
As I write this, I implore readers to please understand that I’ve dealt with this issue at length. Last year, I did a book called 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative. When I did the speaking tour, I spoke to many young conservatives. Gay marriage came up constantly. My latest book, just released, explores the deeply disturbing ideological history of those who sought to outright abolish marriage and family. In that book, Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, I detail how the goal of fundamentally transforming family and marriage has been a staple of the far left for two centuries, from Marx and Engels to cultural Marxists in the Frankfurt School to ’60s radicals to progressives today.
The point: a radical leftist is eagerly willing to remake marriage and family in his own image, but a conservative is not. To the contrary, the task of the conservative is to fight that rebellion, to affirm and defend and preserve and conserve the natural-traditional-biblical family—i.e., that time-tested institution that Reagan called “the most important unit in society,” “the most durable of all institutions,” “the nucleus of civilization,” “the cornerstone of American society.” And children, said Reagan, “belong in a family” with a mom and dad. In fact, Reagan maintained that it is in a family that children are not only cared for but “taught the moral values and traditions that give order and stability to our lives and to society as a whole.” America’s families must “preserve and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish.” Above all, Reagan stated that our “concept of the family” “must withstand the trends of lifestyle and legislation.”
And yet, gay marriage is no mere trend of lifestyle and legislation. By breaking the ancient Western standard of marriage between one man and one woman, it will forever alter our concept of family that has formed the nucleus of civilization.
I’ll wrap up with a key question that I get asked all the time by conservatives on this issue: Can one still be a conservative and support gay marriage?
I’d have to say that if someone is conservative on 90 out of 100 issues, but gay marriage isn’t one of them, that person probably ought to still be regarded as a conservative—albeit with a really skewed misunderstanding of how gay marriage fits their conservative worldview.
But while some conservatives will support gay marriage, gay marriage is flatly not a conservative position.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest book is Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. His other books include 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative.
Gutfeld with his overnight program, whatever cute name it is called, is just seeking controversy for discussion and viewership, IMO.
In the end, these self-described conservatives and pundits are really largely in it for themselves.
“Gay” (i.e., buggering homosexual deviancy) as a conservative idea? What in the hell is this fool thinking?
To me, this Greg guy is somebody who lucked into a 1 of 5 slot on “The Five” and now has something authoritative to say? Hardly. Never heard about him before “The Five”....probably won’t hear any after “The Five.”
> Can one still be a conservative and support gay marriage?
No.
At least not one that can render a reason.
In 25 years, San Francisco will be a lot whiter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3298037/posts
A lot of what Gutfeld says should be finished with a “/Sarc”
That would be a Libertarian.
Nice try, Greg, but no sale.
IMO, “The Five” is about on the same level as “The View”. Perfect for the Republican who is ruled by emotion only.
I guess so. I just don’t think that he really has anything worthwhile to say for me.
Libertarians opining on conservative ideas is never a good thing. No Gregg, it is not "conservative" at all.
You CAN be conservative and think gay marriage is toothpaste out of the tube thst isn’t going back in. I truly believe in a free constitutional republic and want it back. I would lay down my life for it so my children can live in freedom, with a weaker, more representational government. Thus I am a conservative.
But gay marriage as an issue is over.
The good news about the other social issue that distracts us, abortion, is that as I predicted, the rates are going down down down. Among all races. This is excellent news. I believe that more than activists, ultrasound technology, growing better and better, has done the work of Gd. Tech can be used for good! It used to be, 20 years ago, that even at 6 weeks pregnant, the heartbeat was heart to find. Now within days after 5 weeks, the heartbeat is SEEN. it’s pretty powerful. You can’t tell a young girl that it’s just a ball of cells when she sees her baby’s heartbeat.
We would do better as a party or voting bloc if we dropped both issues as neither of them are a President’s duty. We need to stop allowing lefty media schmucks to shoehorn us into litmus tests. Don’t worry about how your candidate feels on those issues. (Though anyone feeling as cruel as Obama should get thrown out on his butt: not allowing babies who survive abortion to live.)
Anyway, there are gay people who feel as I do too, and I’m happy to have their votes against socialism.
> But gay marriage as an issue is over.
Just wait till they start forcing you, and especially your kids and grandkids, to celebrate and participate in “gay” weddings.
Just wait till they remove the tax exempt status of churches that dare to preach what the Bible says about it.
Just wait till they add this to your “diversity training” at work, and you have to parrot the sick delusional party line if you want to keep your job.
Just wait.
Comic relief maybe?
Oxymoron! You cannot be a Sodomite Marriage Christian, of a Sodomite Christian, or a Pedophile Christian, or a Liberal Christian (because you would support the above).
We need to fight for the right of churches and synagogues to be able to marry according to their own laws. Religious worship MUST be protected if we are to remain at all a free country.
No one can force anyone to celebrate weddings, though. You go or you don’t.
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