I have to admit it—after years of denial, internal struggle with my emotions and with my very identity, I can no longer kid myself. Republicans just don’t attract me any more. In fact, as the years have passed, they have begun to repel me. It wasn’t always like this. Once, I was able to be passionate about them. But the party has changed, and my basic instincts haven’t.
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Category Archives: Gay Rights
Shades of the Taliban
Hatred and intolerance are not the exclusive property of demented fundamentalists from the Middle East. We have our home-grown varieties as well.
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First Principles
I know I cannot expect too much at the beginning of the semester, so it shouldn’t have taken me by surprise when a young woman in my class asked “Isn’t the Bill of Rights intended to protect our civil liberties until we infringe the rights of the majority?” Of course, she had it exactly backwards: the right of the majority to instruct government to act on its behalf is constrained by the Bill of Rights, which limits the right of those majorities to infringe individual freedom.
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A Double-Edged Sword
Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”That pronouncement from Margaret Mead, widely quoted, is true. But its truth makes it a double-edged sword.
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Defining Families
In 1960, 44.2% of Americans lived in “Ozzie and Harriet” households, defined as a married couple living with their own children under eighteen. (Okay, so maybe mom was hitting the bottle in her suburban kitchen and dad was smacking the kids around when he came home from golfing with his buddies, but in Ozzie and Harriet time we didn’t ask such impertinent questions. They were married, the kids were theirs, God was pleased. End of story.)
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