«b»{{{Guest Blogging by NotDeskmerc}}}«/b»
Glenn Reynolds cited «a href="http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07122004/utah/182851.asp"»this article«/a» written about the gay marriage amendment ban thing, published in the Salt Lake Tribune. «a href="http://instapundit.com/archives/016525.php"»Glenn asks«/a»:
«blockquote»«I» ... I wonder if people are thinking this through. If the amendment fails, as expected, isn't that going to be read as a defeat for the anti-gay-marriage folks, and as implicit permission for states to go ahead? It seems to me that it will be (which is fine with me, since I'm okay on gay marriage), but that makes me wonder why anti-gay-marriage folks are doing this. Am I missing something, or are they being played for suckers? «/blockquote»«/I»
Bearing in mind this a newspaper from a Mormon city, the obviousness of the truth may just have slipped by the author. However, I think this is just what it seems to be, sans any refined political guile. There is a loud minority constituency of people who honestly feel so strongly opposed to gay marriage that they are willing to see it banned in a constitutional amendment, without any regard for how Jim Crow that seems.
It will not be passed, because most reasonably intelligent people recognize how profoundly stupid this whole issue is. This is one of the costs of the Republican strategy: appealing to the great white unwashed. Just like the Democrats inexplicably have the poor racial minority vote (depsite the fact that Democrats were responsible for Jim Crow), the Republicans have their own rabble. The Born-Agains.
You know who I'm talking about. Everybody's got at least one in their family. The uncle you hate visiting because he and his wife expect you to pray for everything, including the dog's food. The mother you can't convince that the world is more than 5000 years old and took longer than a week to make, geology be damned. The sister who used to be a coke addict, but now festoons her car with Christian radio station bumper stickers. These people cling so closely to their Bible that reality has little opportunity to intervene. These are the same idiots who rabble-roused against stem cell research «a href="http://deskmerc.com/archives/000073.php"»(see the chat transcript below«/a»), without having the faintest idea how the science works. They call into talk radio and ramble incoherently about how gay people are a threat to family values, but they can't give any specific reason why. They just are, because Jesus said so. Besides, it's unnatural.
The Republicans aligned themselves with these people because they are numerous enough to substantiate a meaningful constituency, they are relatively safe (after all, they're godly...), and they are not terribly troubled by environmental or geopolitical issues. They don't really mind that we are at war with Iraq, not because they have a particular interest in the energy market over there (like so many leftists believe Republicans universally do), but because those are evil, wicked Muslims. They are definitely going to hell, and they don't even believe in God.
Born Agains and Republicans agree more often than not, and what interests they don't explicitly share, they will at least tacitly acknowledge - though I tend to think that lately the mainstream Republicans have been giving in more than makes sense... but, it's their tree, they have to sit in it now.
I don't think that the real free-market/small government Republican necessarily gives a rat fart about gay marriage, but since they don't really care, they'll go along with whatever the born agains are asking for, at least in gesture. When it gets smacked down, they won't care either.
The political strategist Republicans don't argue because they don't want to alienate that constituency. But, I think the average conservative Republican Joe just doesn't understand the whole "gay thing" anyway, and the idea of two guys nancing around playing house together just doesn't sit well. Pressured to give a reason, they'll cite some vague insurance-fraud-related issue, but really - «i»really«/i» - it's the butt fucking.
It's unfortunate that gayness has become such a public issue. I guess sex sells and all, but if the media wouldn't have tried to appease the gays by making gay relationships into entertainment on primetime television, I don't think the born-agains would have gotten so twisted off. Now both parties are stuck having to appease these loud minority groups (the radical gays on the left and the born-against on the right), and consequently something that ought to be a non-issue - and is, in fact, one big shrug in most households - is being bandied about in the newspapers and court.
As an aside, I really don't understand why gays are so quick to align themselves with the media left. I guess the limelight is fun, but one would think they'd recognize that this is just another form of amusement for the leftist elitism. The bourgeois left just loves a freak to condescend toward. It makes them feel so very magnanimous and cosmopolitan.
«blockquote»«i»Oh, look at the homosexual couple, dear! Don't they look just like the little men on those scandalous Greek plates we saw at Sotheby's last Tuesday? Let's invite them over for dinner - I hear they have wonderful taste in wine. That's so sweet that they feel comfortable holding hands in public.«/i»«/blockquote»
But, I guess any port in a storm, and the gay constituency is willing to tolerate that kind of backhanded patting of the cheek, because it's better than being lynched by the born-agains in a frenzy of salvation.
Just my $0.02.