Republicans: Homosexuality, at Any Cost

Great Debates
1

I just checked Drudge Report, and was greeted with the following headline: Kerry Signed Letter Backing Gay Marriage, which links readers to a page in which an article describes that Kerry doesn’t back gay marriage. Apparently he voiced opposition to a Massachucetts amendment that would have prevented Civil Unions.

Now, this might just be the usual hyperbole that Drudge uses to generate hits… except that this has been a hot issue for the last two years. It’s been debated countlessly on this board and others. Personally, I see one side saying that homosexuality is either evil or synonymus with promiscuity and the other whining about the world order. I see this as a non-issue. There’s no particularly good reason to care about this issue in the face of pressing concerns like crime, unemployment, war, international relations, education… things that ACTUALLY AFFECT YOU IN YOUR DAILY LIFE.

But the Republicans seem to think otherwise. Just as that party became the stronghold of those beating drums over the abortion issue, it has also become the party to make an issue out of gay marriage (or the party people who care about gay marriage flocked to, whichever.) All over the country, the Republican party tells people that gay marriage must be stopped for reasons X, Y, and Z and so therefore they must be elected… when the issue doesn’t have the slightest effect on individual lives. (In comparison to, say, whether they have enough food on the table.)

This is a great move for local politicians. Passing a bill that says the state will not pass a bill that allows gay marriage (an anti-bill) is a totally unfunded law- no more government spending! It’s the sort of wonderful law that only exists to mollify a popular paranioa. And it’s useless, because gay marriage wouldn’t be legal until a bill made it so- and if a later bill was to do this, it would overrule the gay marriage bill anyway.

Talk of talking this further is a good idea for higher politicans too. I have faith that there are enough people who still have possession of their logical faculties to stop a Constituional Amendment that would pre-empt bills allowing gay marriage (amending the Con is hard to do), so politicans who say they want to do so are able to get some more totally free milage out of a politically-cultured climate of disgust.

Either way, the issue is vapor. On the totem pole of issues I want our leaders to be talking about, gay marriage is really fucking low on it. And I am totally at a loss as to why everyone else (yes, even gay people) care about it so much that they’re willing to hand every election in the forseeable future to the Republicans.

-C

2

Wow, your topic made me think of a COMPLETELY different assertion. :slight_smile:

Seriously, though, this issue combines issues of power, sex, politics, human rights, and religion, some of the most controversial subjects you can think of, all crammed into one little question. And you wonder why people take it hard?

3

Yes, it combines alot of things… but so would a debate about whether or not it’s moral to take out the garbage in my bathrobe. It just doesn’t matter on a national or international scale. I will not have more or less money in my bank account, food on my table, or freedom of the press tomorrow based on whether or not some some gay couple gets to marry.

Yet we’re supposed to use views on this issue to rate politicians?

-C

4

I’d like to ask you something: how religious are you? If you follow any faith at all, how seriously do you take it?

I think the religion part of this issue alone explains the passion, especially in a nation that is, in a sense, founded by Puritans…

5

This was completely predictable.

It was pretty obvious that the Republicans want to steer this presidential campaign away from subjects which make them look bad. Things like the national debt, the war in Iraq, the loss of jobs, tax cuts for the rich, cronyism, and so on are going to be tough to answer for. So, they want to refocus the campaign on purely emotional issues that appeal to their core constituency.

In order to do this, they’re taking a vulnerable minority population and turning them into scapegoats. They’re demonizing gay people, hoping the US will fear them more than it fears, say, unemployment. It’s misdirection, using people’s basest emotions. Not a bad tactic.

Unfortunately for them, it only works for so long. People get distracted, sure, but they usually come back to the subject matter at hand. And you can only pull the “Look! A distracting thing!” trick so many times on an audience before they see right through you.

The subject at hand was the President’s National Guard record. And it’s small potatoes; it’s trivia, compared to what he’s going to get hit with during the actual campaign. We’re still nine months out, and they’re frantically gesturing offstage, yelling “Look! Scary gay people! Watch out!” They’ve been forced to pull out this tactic early, and it’s going to get old fast.

Once people figure out that every time the competition has Bush and Co. on the ropes, they start frothing at the mouth about gays, they’re going to quit being distracted. And then the incumbents are going to have to find a new tactic. I wonder who will get scapegoated next…

6

Obviously, most of you heterosexuals take your right to marry for granted; you can’t imagine **not **having that right. Just like so many white people take for granted the freedoms that blacks had to fight to attain.

I’d never vote **for **someone just based on this issue, but I’d certainly vote **against **someone who thinks I shouldn’t have the same rights as anyone else.

7

There’s a name for people who repeatedly let others hoodwink them with obvious ploys. And there’s one of them born every minute. The Republican Party is counting on all of them, straight and gay, to get tremendously involved in this whole gay marriage debate.

8

So, being told that you can’t marry the person you love doesn’t actually affect you in your daily life??

You must have a different definition of important than I do.

9

I see, anything that doesn’t directly afffect me is unimportant; I’m alright Jack.

Bullshit, unless you’re a hermit.
Or was it that dealing with crime, unemployment, war, international relations, education somehow makes you unable to deal with ‘lesser’ issues at the same time?

10

It is a little difficult to imagine someone talking about marriage as no big deal. As in we should talk about things that ACTUALLY AFFECT US IN OUR DAILY LIVES, and not about marriage, which is totally trivial and never affects anyone’s life. What???

To make the point concrete, consider the story of two friends of mine. One is an American citizen and the other is a Canadian citizen, and they have been together for over ten years. If they were a man and a woman, they could have been married and lived in the US with the normal problems of being in a relationship. As it is, they have faced countless problems and decisions as to where to live, whether to give up both their jobs in the States to move to Canada, on and on. They are always on pins and needles because the immigration status of the one could dissolve the relationship.