Monthly Archives: May 2012

Church, State, Gay, Straight

Okay, it’s time for one of my broken-record rants.

In the wake of President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, we’ve had a predictable–and increasingly tiresome–outpouring of criticisms to the effect that government recognition of such unions violates the “religious liberty” of those who oppose them.

No, it doesn’t.

Government recognition of civil same-sex marriages is no different from government’s recognition of heterosexual divorce. Divorce violates the religious doctrines of Catholics and several other Christian denominations. Those denominations remain free to expel divorced congregants, to refuse to recognize their newly single status, to preach against divorce, or to take such other congregational action as may be dictated by their particular theologies. Meanwhile, the government adjusts the legal, civil and tax status of divorced folks. It recognizes the reality of their severed relationship.

If every state in the country were to recognize same-sex marriage tomorrow–if they were to recognize the reality of same-sex relationships–churches would still be free to reject gay parishioners, to refuse to perform same-sex unions, and to preach about the sin of homosexuality in accordance with their doctrines. But gay couples could file joint tax returns. Their children would be covered under their employers’  health insurance policies. They would be entitled to hospital visitation, Social Security survivor benefits, and the full panoply of civil rights to which legally married folks are entitled. Last time I looked, there were well over a thousand such rights that my husband and I enjoy automatically because the government recognizes our marriage.

It has been obvious for a very long time that the only genuine objection to same-sex marriage is religious. There are no credible secular arguments, as was painfully clear from the trial testimony in California’s Proposition 8  litigation. Numerous studies have confirmed that children raised by gay parents–and there are millions of them–are just as well-adjusted and happy as those raised by heterosexuals. All of the public policy reasons for encouraging heterosexual marriage apply with equal force to homosexual ones. The “slippery slope” argument has best been rebutted by Bill Maher, who noted that allowing women to vote did not–surprise!–usher in voting rights for dogs or vegetables.

Furthermore, not all religions are homophobic. A growing number of denominations are welcoming gays and lesbians and celebrating same-sex marriages.

What we are seeing now is the last gasp of the fundamentalists who believe–contrary to history and the American constitution–that the U.S. is a Christian Nation, and not simply Christian, but their particular brand of Christian. When we deconstruct their argument, it boils down to a conviction that whenever the government allows behavior of which they disapprove, government has violated their religious liberty.

Next time we go to war, tell that to the Quakers.

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Looking Backward

In 1980, I won the Republican primary for what was then Indiana’s Eleventh Congressional District, defeating three opponents. I was pro-choice and on record supporting equal rights for gays and lesbians (same-sex marriage was not yet an issue), positions that were consistent with the generally libertarian Republicanism of the day. Indeed, my loss to Andy Jacobs, Jr. in the general election was widely attributed to the belief that as a “Goldwater Republican,” I was simply too conservative.

My political philosophy has not changed in the intervening 32 years, but now I’m routinely accused of being a leftist or socialist.

How far the political pendulum has swung! A pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate winning a Republican primary almost anywhere in the country would be inconceivable today.

In Indiana, even Richard Lugar—who had become steadily more conservative as the party’s center shifted more and more to the right—was deemed insufficiently pure by the rigid party base that now controls the GOP.  Governor Daniels’ argument that Richard Mourdock is in the mainstream of the party is actually true, because the party today is more radical than at any point in my lifetime. The people I worked with on past Lugar campaigns and in the Hudnut Administration are dispirited and dismayed; more and more often, they’re voting Democrat or simply staying home.

That brings me to the new slogan unveiled by the Obama campaign a few weeks ago: Forward. That slogan has generated a lot of derision from Republicans, but they may find their scorn is misplaced. In a very real sense, the 2012 general election will be a choice between going forward and going backward.

The President’s recent statement supporting same-sex marriage is just one example. The principle (which used to be a Republican principle) is that government should treat all citizens equally. Acceptance of the application of that principle to gays and lesbians is clearly the way forward.

The Administration’s support for equal marriage rights is only one example. Yes, my students overwhelmingly endorse equal civil recognition for same-sex couples. But they also support Administration proposals–vehemently opposed by Republicans–to ameliorate climate change, including government support for renewable energy and conservation. While the subject of abortion remains a thorny moral issue for many of them, they are repelled by efforts to humiliate women by mandating vaginal ultrasounds and similarly invasive procedures. And they are appalled by efforts to go backward by denying women access to contraception.

Whatever their opinions of much-maligned and poorly understood “Obamacare,” surveys confirm that most Americans agree with the proposition that our healthcare system is both economically and morally deficient, and that those deficiencies must be addressed.

Surveys also show huge majorities of Americans favor cutting the deficit by raising tax rates on the wealthy, and favor reducing expenditures on defense. (In defiance, the House GOP recently voted to restore proposed defense cuts and to pay for that restoration not with taxes but by cutting services to poor women and children.)

In November, voters will have a choice between an administration that—while often clumsy and ham-handed—is on the right side on most of these issues, and a party that stubbornly rejects dealing with any of them.

At a time when America desperately needs two substantive political parties offering competing solutions to the problems we face, one of them—the one I supported for 35 years—has simply gone off the rails. I miss that party. America misses that party.

Today’s GOP has come to be known as the “Party of No,” and it isn’t just Obama the party is rejecting. It’s rejecting modernity.

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The Scariest Thing About Mitt Romney

This morning’s New York Times asked an important question: is there a “Romney Doctrine”?

The article detailed the multiple ways in which Romney has ignored the advice of seasoned members of his foreign policy team, and rejected the more nuanced positions that Bush junior came to embrace in his second term (after learning lessons the hard way). Instead, Romney–who has zero foreign policy experience–has repeatedly engaged in hard-line, uninformed saber rattling.

Of all the things we are learning about the man who could very well become the most powerful person on the planet, this lack of appreciation for the complexities of the world America inhabits is the most worrisome.

Given Romney’s approach to campaigning–a full-throated pander to the most retrograde elements of the GOP base–it is certainly possible that his foreign policy positions are simply as self-serving as his domestic ones. This is, after all, a man whose only obviously genuine belief is in his own entitlement to be President. But unlike uninformed, simplistic statements about domestic issues, a presidential candidate’s foreign policy pronouncements are news around the globe.  They become part of the intricate diplomatic calculus that the United States must engage in every day. When those statements are unreflective or contrary to current U.S. policies and interests, they complicate and disrupt ongoing international discussions.

If Romney the candidate is unaware of the effect of his bellicose statements, what evidence do we have that he would be more thoughtful as President? Thus far, we have seen no signs of self-reflection or intellectual curiosity–and certainly, no hint of recognition that there might be deficits in his understanding of a complex world.

The more we learn about Mitt Romney, the more convinced I become that he would be a disaster as President. Not because he is an evil man, but because he is an empty one.

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Only in Indiana

Over at the Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan has posted a memo he somehow obtained from a Republican pollster–the same guy who did polling for George W. Bush.   The advice he gives GOP candidates–based upon his reading of recent poll results–is pretty astonishing; he bluntly warns that continuing its anti-gay positions and rhetoric will “marginalize the party for a generation,” because public opinion about gay equality is shifting so quickly.

According to his data, even a majority of Republicans favor basic civil rights protections for gays and lesbians, and the rate of acceptance is accelerating.

Now, I understand that Republicans in states like New York and Massachussetts are more likely to endorse equal treatment for LBGT folks than Republicans–and Democrats–in considerably less progressive Indiana. But even here, most of my own Republican friends react to anti-gay rhetoric with distaste. A not-inconsiderable number of them favor same-sex marriage. My students–Republican and Democrat alike–are almost unanimous in their support, and bewildered by the opposition.

What was that Dylan song? Something about it not taking a weathervane to see where the wind is blowing?

This change in public opinion is hardly a secret; especially since the President’s “evolution” on the issue, it has pretty much been front-page news. So why on earth would John Gregg reiterate not only his opposition to same-sex marriage, but his support for a constitutional amendment banning it?

The Gregg campaign has made several missteps already. Most of them, however, have involved the sort of in-party squabbling that hobbles a candidate organizationally, but not necessarily publicly. This, however, is one of those “unforced errors” that makes savvy political folks wince.

All John Gregg has to do in order to get progressive voters to support him is to not be Mike Pence. How hard is that?

Wrong side of history, wrong side of morality, wrong side of logic.

Rupert must be so pleased.

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A Couple of Gloomy Observations

Yesterday, I got a phone call from an old friend. Unlike most of my other Republican friends, who have been appalled by the Lugar-Mourdock results, he was euphoric. Why? Because Mourdock “is a bomb thrower! He’ll go to Washington and he won’t play the game!”

Also yesterday, a commenter to one of my recent blogs on the subject questioned the idea that Lugar had moved to the right during his long career. Why, he had voted for the President’s Supreme Court Justices and the bailouts, and supported the Dream Act! How could he be conservative?

If there is any lesson to be learned from the expression of these sentiments, it is that political advertising is effective, especially when coupled with an audience’s lack of understanding of basic democratic (note small d) governance. The examples cited by the commenter as evidence that Lugar is really a “moderate” who (in the opinion of my Republican friend) “played with the liberals” amount to little more than a regurgitation of Mourdock’s ads. Three or four examples were plucked from a 36-year career and relentlessly pounded on; voila! the man’s a  squishy bipartisan compromiser. And compromise is bad, bomb-throwing and intransigence are what we need!

The people expressing these opinions aren’t uneducated. But they  were clearly swayed by an unrelenting ad campaign fueled by lots of Super Pac money.

I don’t worry about two people with uninformed opinions.  Nor do I fault these folks for not doing the research necessary to counter the 30-second sound-bites.

But I am deeply worried about the extent to which billionaires and Super Pacs will influence the millions of equally uninformed voters in November.

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