Posted on 05/20/2003 8:14:33 AM PDT by theoverseer
In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush’s entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."
According to the Times’ report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don’t want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can’t be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."
Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.
This demand to quarantine a political enemy might have had more credibility if the target – the Campaign for Human Rights -- were busily burning crosses on social conservatives’ lawns. But they aren’t. Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues. Just before the launching of the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush himself was asked about similarly mean-spirited Republican attacks. His response was that politicians like him weren’t elected to pontificate about other people’s morals and that his own faith admonished him to take the beam out of his own eye before obsessing over the mote in someone else’s.
The real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society. Tolerance is different from approval, but it is also different from stigmatizing and shunning those with whom we disagree.
I say this as someone who is well aware that Christians are themselves a persecuted community in liberal America, and as one who has stood up for the rights of Christians like Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer to have their views, even when I have not agreed with some of their agendas. Not long ago, I went out on a public limb to defend Paul Weyrich when he was under attack by the Washington Post and other predictable sources for a remark he had made that was (reasonably) construed as anti-Semitic. I defended Weyrich because I have known him to be a decent man without malice towards Jews and I did not want to see him condemned for a careless remark. I defended him in order to protest the way in which we have become a less tolerant and more mean-spirited culture than we were.
I have this to say to Paul: A delegation to the chairman of the RNC to demand that he have no dialogue with the members of an organization for human rights is itself intolerant, and serves neither your ends nor ours. You told Racicot, "if the perception is out there that the party has accepted the homosexual agenda, the leaders of the pro-family community will be unable to help turn out the pro-family voters. It won’t matter what we say; people will leave in droves."
This is disingenuous, since you are a community leader and share the attitude you describe. In other words, what you are really saying is that if the mere perception is that the Republican Party has accepted the "homosexual agenda," you will tell your followers to defect with the disastrous consequences that may follow. As a fellow conservative, I do not understand how in good conscience you can do this. Are you prepared to have President Howard Dean or President John Kerry preside over our nation’s security? Do you think a liberal in the White House is going to advance the agendas of social conservatives? What can you be thinking?
In the second place, the very term "homosexual agenda," is an expression of intolerance as well. Since when do all homosexuals think alike? In fact, thirty percent of the gay population voted Republican in the last presidential election. This is a greater percentage than blacks, Hispanics or Jews. Were these homosexuals simply deluded into thinking that George Bush shared their agendas? Or do they perhaps have agendas that are as complex, diverse and separable from their sexuality as women, gun owners or Christians, for that matter?
In your confusion on these matters, you have fallen into the trap set for you by your enemies on the left. It is the left that insists its radical agendas are the agendas of blacks and women and gays. Are you ready to make this concession -- that the left speaks for these groups, for minorities and "the oppressed?" Isn’t it the heart of the conservative argument that liberalism (or, as I would call it, leftism) is bad doctrine for all humanity, not just white Christian males?
If the President’s party – or conservatism itself -- is to prevail in the political wars, it must address the concerns of all Americans and seek to win their hearts and minds. It is conservative values that forge our community and create our coalition, and neither you nor anyone else has - or should have - a monopoly in determining what those values are.
I don't know if that's the case. My impression is that he simply didn't anticipate the wild imagination of Gary Bauer.
Just for fun, let's proceed on your terms. Are you saying that the government can put people in jail for touching other people in a pleasurable manner when they are both adults and they both agree to it. Why would this not be a human right? What would be the source of the power of governmental power to outlaw this behavior.
More to the point, you have a lot of reeducating of people to do, shouldn't you be about your business?
If the Supremes find such a "right" this term they will have to overrule existing case law and yes, this right will be brand spanking new. I'm not the one with facts wrong. Nothing in the Constitution grants a "human right to sexual activity," nor is there any Supreme Court case interpreting the Constitution to grant such a right.
It is crystal clear the people who wrote the Declaration and the Constitution thought there was no such right because they saw no Constitutional problem with sodomy laws. You have believed in this "right" for over 35 years. So is that when the Constitution was amended to add this new right, in 1968?
Guarenteed by what? You keep dodging the debate why the 9th supercedes the 10th amendment. What does the clause “certain rights” mean to you? The 9th amendment only protects those right’s “certain rights” that are not addressed by legislative law, that was Madison’s intent and NOTHING about the Liberaltarian concept of "force" is ever mentioned. Why do you think LSD and Ecstasy were legal when they first came out?
If not, then why should I, or anyone, accept at face value the assertions made in this post? Surely you're not going to tell me it's from an unbiased source? Don't make me laugh.
Did something lead you to believe Racicot made promises?
Yep...that pesky incest law works here even though your "adult" condition is arbitrary and unconstituional.
tdadams is just trying to obfuscate the issue and ignore the facts. The real point is we don't have smokers and obese folks talking to our school kids that smoking and being obese is okay and there are no health consequences. Where we do have GLSEN and others telling school kids it's okay to be gay and even discussing fisting.
I don't understand the reluctance to support the right to non-coital acts. If there is no support, just say so.
If you have a counter to the points I made earlier or something new and coherent let's hear it.
Those things don't really change a society do they?
You think our rights are a grant from the Constitution or the Supreme Court??? I think we've found the source of confusion.
You’ve addressed NOTHING, except maybe in your own mind, other than trying to dodge my question. What does the clause “certain rights” mean to you? Why does the 9th supercede the 10th????
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