Buchanan Loves Him Some Hitler Putin

I wasn't going to publish this, but with Putin pushing hard for World War III, I think it's a good time. A lot of the problems with our current fringe can be traced back to the 1990s. In the 1990s, conservatism was understandably upset at Bush the Elder. Unfortunately, the group that would become our fringe abandoned the values of Ronald Reagan and instead adopted the values and rhetoric of Pat Buchanan. And let me tell you, Pat Buchanan is the last person anyone should be listening to, as demonstrated with his recent fellating of Putin.

I’m not kidding when I say that modern conservatives abandoned Reagan and instead followed Buchanan. They worship Reagan in the abstract and wrap themselves in his cloak, but they align themselves with the pessimistic anti-American Buchanan over the optimistic pro-American Reagan. On issue after issue, they follow Pat's rotten views, which are the polar opposite of Reagan's -- if you look at the talk radio playbook today you will find that their standard quotes and knee jerk opinions come almost verbatim from Buchanan’s apocalyptic “culture wars” speeches, most of which are the exact opposite of what Reagan stood for. To give an example, earlier this month, Pat claimed that the GOP lost middle America by embracing free trade (Reagan was staunchly pro-trade) and by importing “30 to 40 million” legal and illegal immigrants (Reagan was pro-immigration) who he calls “people of color” (Reagan never judged people by race).

Becoming the party of Buchanan was a huge mistake because it led the right away from being the pro-American party of prosperity, a thriving party which grew every day under Reagan, and sent it down the path to becoming this brooding anti-immigrant party who see America as a hopeless, failing state beset by enemies behind every rock. It's no coincidence that conservatism has been losing support ever since it started this journey. Moreover, this led them away from conservative ideas like embracing the power of freedom and has instead engendered a leftist belief in the power of strongmen who promise stability. This can be seen with Pat Buchanan's recent embrace of Putin.

Earlier this month, Pat penned an editorial love letter to his new crush, Vladimir Putin. In this bizarre editorial, he assures us that God is on Putin’s side. Why? Because he sees Russia as “the Christian country” fighting against “a decadent West,” and he sees Putin as the defender of the faith basically. Of Putin, Pat says:

“Putin is plugging into some of the modern world's most powerful currents. Not only in his defiance of what much of the world sees as America's arrogant drive for global hegemony ... He is also tapping into the worldwide revulsion of and resistance to the sewage of a hedonistic secular and social revolution coming out of the West.”

Of course, his belief in a “worldwide revulsion” ignores the fact that the vast majority of people on this planet embrace every part of our culture, from our foods to our films to our consumer goods to our values. In fact, this has been a common complaint of fundamentalist Islam, failed dictators needing scapegoats, and our own left and right fringe for decades. His belief that social revolution is coming is ignorant fantasy; it is a view one reaches when one has no friends except other ideologues and there is ZERO evidence for it in the culture outside of tiny extremist blogs. His view of America as arrogantly driving for global hegemony is the same thing he used to attack liberals for saying as disloyal and traitorous.

As for Putin, Putin is the head thug of a neutered empire that is now a regional power. It has become the tallest among dwarves and pretends that makes it an NBA center. Pat doesn’t realize that because he's stuck in the cold war. And what makes Pat worship Putin is that Putin is running Pat’s kind of theocracy. Specifically, Pat mentions how Putin “imposed a ban on homosexual propaganda, a ban on abortion advertising, a ban on abortions after 12 weeks and a ban on sacrilegious insults to religious believers.” That’s how Pat defines good Christianity. Do you think Jesus would agree?

Of course, what Pat overlooks is huge. To see Putin as a hero, you need to forget that Putin is invading his neighbors and interfering in their internal affairs. Forget that he's supplying nuclear hardware to Islamic Iran. Forget that he's selling high end military hardware to China and Syria. Forget that he's trying to create an alliance with countries like Cuba and Venezuela to harass us. Forget that he's terrorized his people. That free speech, property rights and rule of law don't exist in Russia. That he locks up people with money if they don't support him, that he shuts down television stations that oppose him, that he locks up rock bands for criticizing him. That his favorite "business" practices are extortion and blackmail. Forget that Mr. Christian uses sex to advertise his candidacy, that’s he’s harassing Christian groups he doesn’t like, or that all the stuff Pat loves is just for show. Forget that Putin presides over a shithole of a country that has stepped backwards in every conceivable way under his reign of error. Yeah, forget all that because he hates them gays and that makes him Pat’s hero.

That’s messed up. But it fits with the rest of Pat's views. In fact, at least three times (1977, the 1980s and 2009) Pat has publicly praised Hitler (he wrote that Americans are “introduced to Hitler only as a caricature” but that Hitler “was also an individual of great courage, a soldier’s soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him.”) and blamed the allies for forcing Hitler to go to war and said Word War II wasn't "worth it." He has declared America finished because of “people of color,” and he has flirted with every third rate dictator to come along for a decade now in the hopes of finding his own Fuhrer to impose a set of beliefs which the public ain't buying.

That is what motivates Buchanan. Buchanan hates that the American public refuses to embrace his vision of a racially and religiously pure America. And everything he says and does spews from that kernel of savage disappointment. But that isn't conservatism, and Putin is not someone conservatives should ever embrace. Think about that the next time some talk radio host praises Putin for being a reel 'merikan.

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Gay Marriage v. Polygamy

Let’s talk about gay marriage from a legal standpoint. Specifically, let me point out why the court will eventually grant such a right, and why it won’t grant the same right to polygamists. I think understanding the difference is instructive.

Up to now, the Supreme Court has punted on the issue of gay marriage. That’s pretty typical actually. In the 1960s, a very liberal Supreme Court jumped into all kinds of issues, like those involving race, abortion and the death penalty. That court thought that the public was moving left quickly and liberals felt that the court could speed up the process by just jumping to the end legally.

The results were a disaster for the left.

Those decisions resulted in a massive backlash which not only stopped society’s leftward drift cold, but started a four decade push back which has almost completely set the clock back to the way it was before the liberal court started tinkering. Even a lot of liberals, like Justice Ginsberg, have recognized this and they have become wary of trying to drive society through the courts. Thus, the court has become much more cautious about trying to change American society by legal fiat. Ergo, the court will be (and has been) very cautious about imposing gay marriage.

That said, from a legal standpoint, gay marriage is inevitable. Here’s why.

When the federal government hands out rights and benefits, it cannot discriminate. Marriage, as it currently exists, is a right (with associated benefits) created by law, and if Congress wanted to end it, it could. There is no natural right to marriage. Indeed, the only form of “marriage” the government recognizes is the legal relationship established under law in which two adults are given a special connected status that entitles them to certain tax treatments, to collect certain benefits, and to engage in certain activities. These are rights and benefit single people are not allowed to collect.

And before we continue, it’s worth understanding why this is allowed, because this obviously discriminates against single people. The answer is that the government is allowed to discriminate where it can demonstrate a sufficiently high justification for that discrimination. In the case of marriage, there is a presumption that encouraging people to marry is good for society for any number of reasons and makes society function more smoothly. Those reasons are sufficiently compelling to justify the government granting the institution of marriage and giving it special privileges, even if that discriminates against non-married citizens.

So how do gays fit into this?

As I said, when the government hands out a right/benefit, it cannot discriminate in whom it gives that right/benefit to without a really compelling reason. And “morality” is not a compelling reason. Compelling reasons tend to involve economics, the orderly administration of society, or the prevention of personal injury. So what is the compelling reason to stop gays from marrying?

It’s easy to see why children can’t marry. Marriage requires two people who are capable of exercising independent judgment and giving valid consent. Children are presumed to lack that capacity because of their immaturity. Thus, it is justified to discriminate against children by legally preventing children from marrying. It’s also easy to see why you can’t marry someone in a coma... lack of consent. Thus, it is justified to discriminate against the unconscious by legally preventing coma patients from marrying. It’s easy to see why you can’t marry a blood relative... the proven genetic damage to children resulting from inbreeding. Thus, it is easy to see why it is justified to discriminate against people who are related by legally preventing them from marrying.

It’s also easy to see why laws banning interracial marriage were struck down. Those laws were premised on “morality,” i.e. some people claimed it was immoral to allow people of different races to marry. But morality is not a valid basis for legal discrimination because “morality” is simply opinion about what conduct people who subscribe to that definition of morality find acceptable or objectionable. The law demands more. It demands a showing of societal effect separate and apart from “your view of what society should be like.” Since there was no other reason to prohibit interracial marriage except “morality,” the court struck those laws down as unlawfully discriminatory.

With gays, it’s the same thing. Other than morality, which is disputed and not a basis for legal discrimination in any event, what is the justification for allowing the government to discriminate against people who want to marry others of the same sex? Allowing this would not sanction a crime. It would not disrupt society. There is no injury concern. It would have minimal economic consequences, and it’s not clear that the benefits don’t outweigh the negatives. That leaves the court with no valid legal basis to support discrimination. Thus, the court is highly likely to strike down the limitation within the law which says this marriage must involve opposite sex partners.

In a way, this is the same legal problem as if the government decided that plumbers could not marry each other. There is no economic, criminal, personal injury, or orderly society reason to justify such a law. Thus, it would be struck down.

That’s why the court will ultimately grant this right.

But this won’t work for polygamists. Why? Because polygamists are not seeking to be granted the “right” to marry, they are seeking to expand the right itself. In other words, whereas gays and interracial couples claimed that they were being unfairly excluded from the right Congress created, polygamists would be arguing that Congress should have made a different right, one that allows for all kinds of group arrangements.

That’s a very different issue and courts don’t let you do that... you can’t expand a legislatively created right by court order. Said differently, if the federal government decides to hand out cars, you can stop it from discriminating against you in the handing out of cars, but you can’t force it to hand out houses instead.

The only way polygamists can force such a change would be by proving a general “right to marry” within the Constitution, which would then require Congress to pass laws affirming that right. But that won’t happen. For one thing, there is nothing in the Constitution which even suggests such a right. For another, the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to find such a right when people have argued for it. Also, granting such a generalize right would be too disruptive of society; the Supreme Court simply doesn’t grant such broad, unfettered rights, even when they are in the Constitution... which this is not.

This is why (1) the Court will take its time in issuing a ruling on gay marriage, but (2) when it does, it will grant such a right, and (3) it won’t grant polygamists the same rights.

Thoughts?

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Our Wrongs and Our Rights

Well, we've had fun times this week, what with DOMA being struck down and other silliness. Not being a deep and learned scholar of constitutional law like our dear President, I doubt I could say anything as to the legal details of the case or its rights and wrongs. I would, however, like to address this whole notion of gay marriage as a "right."

The lure of accepting gay marriage as an inevitability and even perhaps a positive good is something many conservatives, especially young conservatives, have snapped up, and while I for one refuse to go gently into that good night (or whatever the phrase is), I do, on some level, understand its appeal. Nobody likes to be mean, or to be perceived as mean; and the libertarian ethos that is part and parcel of American conservatism would have a hard time in any climate opposing calls for the freedom to marry. Consider the stance of groups like "Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry," which argues that endorsing gay marriage "is in line with our core belief in limited government and individual freedom," not some "partisan issue." Well, I can forgive them that (though not their rejection of opposition as not "a conservative or an American value"). But their rhetoric strikes me all the same as extremely muddle-headed, to say the least, and as indicative of our modern obsession with rights.

Although it seems most glaring today in connection with gay marriage, this is hardly a new obsession. The history of the modern West could almost be summarized as people conceiving of rights and then being determined to get them, no matter how noble or absurd. Consider, for example, the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," which includes in its list not only the right to marry, the right to equal pay, and the right to free education, but also the right of copyright, the right to an international order, the right to develop one's personality (whatever that means), and the right to "rest and leisure." Well. But are these claims merely laughable, or actually wrong?

Conservatism has always been suspicious of such broad declarations of personal right. And rightly so: Too often, people mean by "right" something nice that they think everyone should be able to have. That is hardly its true meaning, though--rights have never existed in a vacuum, but are always dependent on circumstances and the obligations that go with them. As Russell Kirk put it, more presciently than he knew, in The Conservative Mind: "If a man has a right to marry, some woman [or in this case, some man] must have the duty of marrying him; if a man has a right to rest, some other person must have the duty of supporting him." Rights and obligations: You can rarely have the former without the latter, and in the real world, obligations often take precedence altogether. This is why I never understood the furor over DADT being cast as a matter of one's right to serve in the military. No one has a right to serve in the armed forces; if such a right existed, anyone not drafted could call themselves "oppressed." Military service is, in the final analysis, an obligation which the military authorities include or exclude a man from as they see fit.

Though the two are hardly identical, something similar could be said about the "right to marry," whether it concerns gays or straights. No individual or board has oversight of marriages, it is true. But just as it would be foolish for me to say my rights are being violated if I don't get drafted, what should I say if I'm unlucky in love and can't find a spouse? Who's violating my rights then? The ladies who shot me down? The government for failing to provide me with a wife? Does any of this make sense?

Now maybe you'll say that I'm interpreting this too narrowly. "Right to marry" doesn't mean the right to be provided with a spouse, it means being able to get married if you and another person want to do so. Fair enough (though you really can't call it a "right" in that case). But at no time in history have we permitted the fulfillment of such desires at face value. Incestuous marriages are not allowed; neither are polygamy or group marriages (yet). Feel free to compare those behaviors to homosexuality or not; the point is that restraints on who can get married are and always have been universally accepted, regardless of the banned people's feelings or whether they "love each other."

Concepts like freedom, liberty, and fighting for one's rights are part and parcel of American conservatism, and should not be denied. But in order to do that, we must not confuse libertarianism with libertinism, nor our desires, sexual or otherwise, with actual rights. At its heart, conservatism understands that liberty exists alongside an often-fragile social fabric; where an institution as important to that fabric's continuation as marriage is concerned, accepting a concept like "homosexual marriage" can only come after careful deliberation and weighing of the costs and benefits (if any), and certainly not because it's demanded as a right.

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It's Time To Embrace Gay Marriage

I figured I would start this week by upsetting some of you. You can thank me later. :) There was some talk last week about the issue of gay marriage and what conservatives should do about it. I’ve given this issue a lot of thought and I think it’s time for conservatives to drop their obsession with gays and embrace the idea. Yeah, I know, you don’t like it, but you’re wrong. Here’s why.

● The Cost v. Benefit Reason: Let’s start with the only reason that really matters in politics: the costs of opposing gay marriage far outweigh the benefits. The costs of opposing gay marriage are actually quite extreme:

● Gays make up 3% of the population (about the same as Jews or Muslims) and they vote in much higher numbers than other members of the public. They also tend to work in “power” industries, like Hollywood, government and law. That makes them influential. They also contribute a lot of money to politicians. Those factors mean they punch way above their weight in politics.

Unfortunately, when they do vote, they vote nearly 100% in favor of the Democrats. This wasn’t always true however, and there’s no reason for it to be this way except that religious conservatives have shown real hatred for gays, which keeps gays out of the party. In fact, they’ve show such visceral pettiness that they won’t even let a gay conservative group have a booth at CPAC. That’s indefensible.

The Democrats have exploited this rather skillfully to politicize gays and turn them into an interest group through the issue of gay marriage. But this only works until the gays get what they want and as long as conservatives keep treating gays like lepers.

If the GOP endorsed gay marriage and stopped being nasty about gays, there would be no reason for gays to remain loyal to the Democrats. In effect, they would be de-politicized and there would be no reason for them to remain a Democratic block. That would mean the Democrats could lose a huge fundraising resource, a large chunk of supporters with influence and power, and a ton of votes. Indeed, if gays swung to 50/50 instead of 100/0, as is quite possible as they start voting on economic and other issues rather than “gay” issues, you would be talking about a 3% swing (-1.5% and +1.5%) in the electorate which would win the GOP a lot of Senate and House seats.

● But gays aren’t the only people turned off by conservatives on this issue. Conservatives have a horrible reputation among women and the young, and the conservative obsession with gays is the reason for this. Most of the women I’ve met have gay friends. Most of the young people I know don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay. Polls repeatedly confirm this.

Continuing to fight against this issue only reinforces the ideas that conservatives are intolerant jerks, who are completely obsessed with other people’s sex lives. Moreover, this isn’t just a “little” issue like funding/defunding some obscure program which most people can ignore, this is a HUGE issue made all the bigger by all those angry conservatives. . . who. . . can’t. . . stop. . . screaming. . . about. . . their. . . obsession. Conservatives have made this into a true hot button issue that is capable of swinging people from one party to another, and we’re on the wrong side.

So the cost of continuing to oppose gay marriage is the continuation of the 70% margins among women, single people and the young, and the continued politicization of gays in favor of the Democrats. At the same time, the benefits of opposing gay marriage are minimal at best:

● Poll after poll, shows the public now favors gay marriage by ever growing margins. When you factor out old people, the public overwhelmingly favors gay marriage. The issue is inevitable. . . you can’t win. Thus, the only benefit gained is to delay the inevitable for maybe a decade or two. Is a few years of delay worth getting destroyed as a political force and getting another Obamacare? In other words, is it worth letting America be destroyed just to slow up gay marriage for a few years?

● The only real “benefit” to opposing gay marriage is that it keeps the Religious Right on the conservative side. Let’s assume that’s a good thing. Still, so what? The Religious Right isn’t going anywhere. The worst they will do is not turn out, and if they don’t, so what? The Religious Right is concentrated in the theocratic states in the South, which the Democrats won’t win anyway. So we win Alabama by 8% instead of 18%, big whoop. In exchange for this, conservatives could instantly become competitive in a dozen other states.

Indeed, everything I’ve seen suggest that the Religious Right is about 6% of the electorate nationwide with the vast majority of them in the South. In the states we are losing they tend to be around 1-2% of voters, if that. If the GOP picks up 1/3 of gays it would offset that loss entirely, and that’s before you even factor in women and young people. The math is obvious.

● There Are No Legitimate Arguments Against It: Putting aside the cynical math, the next question is why should we oppose this at all? This is something I’ve given a ton of thought to and I’ve reached the conclusion that I can’t find a valid reason for opposing gay marriage. Consider the arguments normally made:

● Conservatives predicted gay marriage would somehow destroy society, and it didn’t. Gay marriage is the law in a dozen states and those states have not seen a single spike in anything bad.

● Conservatives predicted gay marriage would destroy marriage, somehow. It hasn’t. There has been no rash of heterosexuals abandoning marriage. Not to mention, it’s pretty stupid to argue that marriage is so weak as an institution that it can’t withstand a few people getting married that you might not like.

● Conservatives argued there would be a benefits rush. That again hasn’t happened. Nor does this argument make sense unless you think we somehow factored in gays when we set up the math supporting those programs. Plus, the conservative embrace of civil unions demonstrates how disingenuous this argument was.

● Blah blah blah... the children. Show me some proof. After forty years of study, you would think there would be some proof supporting this argument. The lack of evidence is deafening.

● Liberals want it! (hat tip to HotAir) This argument is too stupid to bother refuting.

● The slippery slope. . . “but what about polygamy?” A slippery slope argument is the best giveaway that you have no valid basis for opposing something. When you find yourself arguing that this could lead to something bad, you are admitting that the thing you are opposing is itself not bad because you need to attack it using something else as a proxy.

The truth is that conservatives simply don’t like gays and these arguments are nothing more than a pretext. The only argument that is left is “gays are immoral,” but I find that entirely unpersuasive because I don’t accept the idea that the government should be telling consenting adults what they may or may not do based on the opinions of other people about how everyone should live their lives. Conservatives recognize this principle when it comes to liberal busybody-ism, why not in this instance? If you can’t find a third-party harm, there’s no reason the government should get involved.

But finally, here’s the biggest thing that changed my mind on gay marriage: I realized it doesn’t hurt me and I have no right to tell someone else how to live their lives. Try as I might, I just can’t think of any way that allowing gays to marry makes my life any less happy, less profitable, or less worthwhile. And for those of you who are so certain that the government needs to stop these people, ask yourself why this matters so much to you.

Thoughts?

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Supreme Courtin' It

There’s a lot of buzz suddenly about the Supreme Court possibly changing the course of the election. The thinking is that with the Supremes about to hear several controversial cases right before the election, that could excite one side or the other to turn out. Uh... no. Few people connect the Court to the election. Moreover, the Court won’t be issuing rulings until after the election. Still, there are some interesting cases coming up.

● Case No. 1: Affirmative Action. Fisher v. U. of Texas is an affirmative action case arising out of the admissions program at the University of Texas. Texas uses race as a consideration in its admissions to ensure educational diversity. Nine years ago, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court said this was acceptable, but the Court has since moved to the right.

When it was originally created, affirmative action was approved by the Court on the basis that it would involve discrimination in favor of certain groups to address “prior wrongs.” This meant, it could be used only where there had been prior discrimination. This was meant to justify discriminating against people who never discriminated themselves because supposedly their racial/gender group had benefited even if they hadn’t. Over time, however, it spread to virtually everywhere, and it got the point that it applied to more than 60% of the public including people who had just arrived in America. That’s when the Court began reining it back in.

In this case, Fisher, who is white, claims that she would have been admitted to the school if she had been any other race. Texas counters that diversity is important to them. Obama’s Justice Department has backed the University.

It’s not clear what the Court will do, though Justice Roberts has attacked affirmative action in the past as being “a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas all opposed the Grutter case allowing race to be used at all, and Alito likely sides with them. So it’s possible the Court will end the use of race in admissions and hiring, or at least require proof of direct discrimination. That said, they could also rule much more narrowly by saying that race may not be used where a goal like diversity can be achieved through some race-neutral means (like taking the top X% of high school graduates within the state or looking at family income). Or they could just affirm the present order.

● Case No. 2: Gay Marriage. The Supreme Court is likely to take on two gay marriage cases. The first involves the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA defines marriage federally as between a man and a woman and denies around 1,000 federal benefits (tax breaks, social security benefits, burial services, etc.) to gay couples who have been legally married in their home states. Obama’s Justice Department has refused to defend the law and several lower courts have already ruled it unconstitutional. How the Supreme Court will rule is unclear, but I suspect they will strike DOMA down.

In the past, the Supreme Court has overwhelmingly struck down laws which denied gays the same rights and protections afforded to heterosexuals. In Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, the Court struck down a law making gay sex illegal. In Romer v. Evans in 1996, the Court struck down a Colorado amendment which banned the passage of gay rights laws. It’s likely that the Court will conclude that DOMA illegally discriminates between lawfully married couples and will strike it down.

The Court may also take on the more significant Hollingsworth’s case, which involves California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. Prop 8 was struck down by the Ninth Circuit on narrow grounds rather than on the basis of some right for gays to be married, but the practical effect of that ruling would be to allow California to go forward with gay marriage.

The Supreme Court could refuse to hear the case (deny cert) in which event the law would remain struck down. Or it could affirm the decision or overturn it. If I had to guess, I would say the Court avoids deciding whether or not there is a right for gays to marry and will instead find some technical reason to affirm or overturn the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. My guess is that ultimately (in some later ruling), the Supreme Court will affirm the right of the states to make up their own minds on the issue of gay marriage, and in anticipation of that ruling, it will stick very closely to making sure that each side complied with California’s legal process in this case. Thus, whichever side should have won under California’s election/legislative process will prevail. . . but the issue won’t be decided under the United States Constitution. But you never know.

● Case No. 3: Voting Rights Act. In 2006, the Congress extended the portion of the Voting Rights Act which requires state and local governments “with a history of discrimination” to get advance approval from the Justice Department before they can change their voting rules. Congress extended this law 25 more years and Bush signed it. It applies to Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as some counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and New Hampshire.

When the Court reviewed this provision in 2009, it expressed significant skepticism, but did not rule on its validity at the time. Said Justice Roberts:

“We are now a very different nation [than the one that first enacted the Voting Rights Act]. Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”

With Congress renewing the law but without making any changes, and with these states arguing that any discrimination was in the distant past, it’s likely that if the Court hears this case that it will strike down or significantly narrow this provision. The practical implications of this can be seen in things like the recent Voter ID laws, which essentially need Justice Department approval or need to be litigated in advance. Without this provision, states would be much more free to pass these law and would no longer be presumed to have discriminatory intent.

Thoughts?

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The Republican Platform: Fringey Stupid

Oh boy. I’ve gotten a look at the Republican platform and let me tell you, while the common sense folks of the Tea Party are making progress all over the country, the fringers who make up the inner sanctum of the Republican cult remain safely ensconced in their bunker. . . untouched by reality. Check this out.

● Priority Number One: The Economy! Well, no. Of the 18 “ideas” listed, not one of them involves improving the economy. Why? Because the retarded chimps who put this platform together don’t care about the economy. What do they care about? Read on.

● Priority Number One: Repealing Obamacare! Well, no. That’s number six on the list, after such high priority issues like “making the internet family friendly.” Yes, you read that right. These dipsh*ts think it is more important to let people know that the Republican Party wants to censor the internet than it is to repeal Obamacare.

● The Homosexual Menace: So what is the first priority listed? This year’s most important priority, apparently, will be stopping gays from marrying. Why? Because “studies” show that children from married couples stay off drugs, get married and don’t commit crimes. Ergo, gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Don’t worry if that makes no sense, just accept the idea that Jesus hates gays. By the way, this same group of the self-righteous is opposed to civil unions too because gays are yucky.

● Fix Welfare. . . Somehow: Next our slow friends have decided that welfare doesn’t work, especially because Obama wants to discourage people on welfare from working. So they want someone, somewhere to fix the current system somehow to encourage people to work. . . which it already does.

● Internet “Freedom”: Apparently, the platform will include some highly technical sounding, yet utter nebulous plan to support internet freedom. Reading the definition will make your head spin, but the lawyer in me had to laugh at all the caveats and interest group sops already obvious in the definition. It sounds like the Republican “internet freedom” platform will be about protecting ISPs (who support Republicans) over net companies (who support Democrats). Any freedom resulting from this will be purely coincidental.

And just in case some freedom should accidentally result, the platform makes sure you can't misuse your freedom because it includes a nifty little section on censoring the internet to make it “family friendly.” See, the internet is EVIL. Apparently, “millions of Americans suffer from . . . pathological gambling” and “the Internet must be made safe for children.” So it’s time to shut down gambling sites, ban sex offenders from the internet, and force ISPs to save the children. . . all “while respecting First Amendment rights.” No, I’m not making this sh*t up.

● Americans with Disabilities: Forget the economy, it’s more important that we make sure Americans with disabilities are included in all aspects of our national life. Well, not all aspects. In fact, all we really care about is two things: (1) we need to force insurers and doctors to treat people with disabilities (I’m told doctors in particular like to tease the disabled with fake cures), and (2) when will somebody finally stop the government from taking children away from people with disabilities? Seriously! This national crisis just dominates the news and it's time someone had the courage to address this! Be brave Platform monkeys, be brave.

Oh, we should also support some nebulous sounding employment programs which we didn’t have the time to examine, but their titles sound nice.

● Repealing Obamacare/Abortion: Finally, we come to repealing Obamacare. Why repeal it? Well, because it’s not right. Also, “Through Obamacare, the current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by protecting the sanctity of human life. Numerous studies have shown that abortion endangers the health and well-being of women, and we stand firmly against it.” Yep, they talk about repealing Obamacare because it promotes abortion.

● Fixing Our Healthcare/Abortion: So how do we fix the nation’s healthcare? Simple: “health is an individual responsibility” and people need to take better care of themselves. That means you fatboy! “Chronic diseases [are] related to lifestyle [and] drive healthcare costs.” So we need to “promote healthy lifestyles.” No doubt, these will be based on being abortion-free and internet porn free. And lest you think I’m joking, two paragraphs into this one, they call upon states to stop “subsidies for abortion.” I guess abortion makes you fat.

Then they give the usual sop to insurance companies (big Republican contributors), which is the worst thing we could do other than what Obama did, and they want science to save us by making record keeping cheaper. Maybe we should ban 16 oz. drinks?

● More Abortion: Then we do two more “healthcare” related points – “supporting” research and protecting individual conscience in healthcare. The first involves banning stem cell treatments and stopping abortion, and the second involves stopping abortion. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

● Reforming the EPA: Oops, sorry, the EPA is cool. . . everybody likes the EPA. We need to reform the FDA. Why? Because drug companies are Republican contributors and they are having a hard time with the current EPA.

● Oops, forgot, more Healthcare: Yes, we’ve mentioned healthcare several times, but we forgot to mention that we want to reduce costs through tort reform. That should fix everything, even though Andrew pointed out that tort reform will only cut a couple billion dollars in a multi-trillion dollar system. Yep. . . problem solved! (Especially once we stop fat people from getting abortions.)

● Education: We’re opposed to “the crippling bigotry of low expectations.” Hell, who isn't?! So how do we fix that? We want reform! But we don’t believe in one-size-fits all, so we can’t really tell you what we want, but it must involve traditional values.

● “Fixing” College Costs: College costs suck. They are “unsustainable.” We should get private companies to issue student loans (fyi: they already do) and we should tell people more about what they are paying (fyi: they already know). Also, maybe not everyone should go to college? Problem solved!

● Prison Reform: Yes, this issue which just dominates the nation’s headlines day after day after day finishes this amazing platform. Basically, we support what we’ve been doing because liberals oppose it and that makes it reform. Yay reform!

● Other Points: Also, while we're at it, let's keep them dirty Mexicans out and let's think about the gold standard because the 500% inflation in the price of gold in the past decade sure makes gold seem awfully stable!


There you have it. A declaration of idiocy. This is the kind of document I would have written if I wanted to lampoon the Republican Party as being dominated by cultists. Gays, abortion, abortion, abortion, some stuff nobody cares about, abortion, stupidity and the status quo described as reform. Not only has this gang of fornicating monkeys completely missed the issues of the day, they’ve proven that (1) they remain obsessed with gays and abortion, (2) they are obsessed with controlling everyone’s private lives, and (3) they know NOTHING. At least they didn’t include Islamophobia or suggest that women get pregnant and stop taking jobs that belong to men. I guess that's something.

It’s time to purge the party of its moronic fringe and force the party hierarchy to at least join the 20th Century, if not the 21st. Fortunately, Romney doesn’t believe any of this crap and is more likely to wipe his butt with this document than he is to read it.

As an aside, if you want to know what the platform should have looked like, how about this:

1. Replace Obamacare with free market healthcare.
2. 10% across the board cut in federal spending and federal wages.
3. Flat tax.
4. Strict anti-lobbying/graft laws.
5. Repeal of all regulations not necessary for public safety.
6. Comprehensive immigration reform.
7. School choice using vouchers.
8. Internet Anti-Censorship Law plus Privacy Rights.
9. Banning government funding for abortion, imposing reasonable restrictions and otherwise leaving this decision to the individual.

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Democratic Wedge Issues

I said a long time ago that the Democratic Party really isn’t a political party anymore. It’s become a collection of tribes held together by some common interests. The thing is, their common interests are really quite narrow and they glossed over significant disagreements in forming the coalition. Recent events, such as Obama’s embrace of gay marriage against the wishes of blacks and Romney’s discussion of education with Hispanics highlight this more than ever. It’s time for conservatives to start driving wedges into this coalition.

Conservatives need to spot the disagreements that were glossed over and start pointing those out relentlessly. The idea would be to cause enough friction within the Democratic alliance that the party ruptures into ineffective smaller groups. Here are some thoughts on where those disagreements might be and how to attack them.

1. Gays v. Feminists: At one point, gays should have been natural allies of conservatives. Conservatives believe in less government and individual rights, and the problems gays faced until the mid-1980s were sodomy laws, which made gay relationships criminal. But now that those laws have been struck down, the gay agenda has switched to forcing others to accept their lifestyles. That puts gays at odds with conservatism. Feminists similarly are at odds with conservatives because they too favor big government schemes to reshape society. So neither groups is likely winnable for conservatives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t drive a wedge between them.

The big issue for feminists is abortion. And as I mentioned the other day when discussing sex selection (something Planned Parenthood just got caught promoting), abortion means the end of homosexuality once genetics locates the “gay gene.” It would behoove conservatives to keep pushing this idea to the gay community that abortion = gay-genocide, and suggesting they seek to limit abortion.

2. Blacks v. Feminists: Blacks have very much tied themselves to the Democrats by making themselves wards of the state. Through either direct money transfers to poor blacks or race-based preferences in loans, housing, schools and jobs for middle and upper-class blacks, blacks as a group have come to rely on the government. So they are unreachable as a group. But as I pointed out the other day, abortion is killing blacks in massive numbers compared to all other races. Conservatives need to beat this drum that abortion = black-genocide to separate them from feminists. It would also be smart of conservatives to start pointing out that affirmative action has by far benefited upper-to-middle class white women more than it has blacks. This has the potential to set up a bloody fight between feminists and blacks over how to divide the spoils of affirmative action.

3. Blacks v. Gays: Blacks as a group are socially conservative when it comes to gays. Conservatives should push the message to blacks that the Democratic Party, which is dominated by the gay lobby, is looking to force the gay agenda on them and their churches.

4. Hispanics v. Everyone: Hispanics are an odd group to be jammed into the Democratic coalition. They are socially conservative and largely Catholic, yet the Democratic Party hates religion (atheists) and is dominated by the gay lobby (gay marriage) and feminists (contraception). Moreover, they are the second biggest victims of abortion, so they should be uneasy with that too (feminists). Unions have worked hard to keep them out of the country, to keep them from getting jobs, and have kept them out of the well-paying union jobs. Further, as Romney noted, the teachers unions are hurting their kids. They run a large number of small businesses, who find themselves attacked by unions, who are unable to obtain financing from the Democrats’ Wall Street friends, and who are crushed by environmental and labor regulations. Each of these issues should be made clear to them.

5. Bankers v. Socialists: By and large, the Democratic rank and file hate business, hate capitalism, and HATE banks. They despise Wall Street. Yet, most of the money the Democrats get comes from that very same Wall Street. And right now, Wall Street is upset at being vilified by the Democrats. Conservatives should keep pushing the Democrats on this point. They should force elected Democrats to make a choice, support Wall Street or do the bidding of the rank and file, by bringing up legislation which splits this coalition, such as elimination of banking fees. The more the Democrats are made to dance, the greater the chance they will lose one group or the other.

6. Environmentalists v. Farmers/Miners/Workers: Since the days of FDR, the Democrats have done their best to buy farmers, coal miners, and skilled-labor workers with government handouts. But in the past thirty years, as ivory tower intellectuals and white-collar professionals have come to dominate the Democratic Party, they’ve adopted environmentalism as a religion, and with it they’ve put in place insane rules which cripple farmers, miners and workers. It’s time for Republicans to push this issue hard. They need to point out to auto-workers in Detroit and coal miners in West Virginia how much regulation the Democrats have imposed on their fields and what the cost is and why this lets China steal their jobs. Also point out how Democratic friends like GE are shipping their jobs overseas. Similarly, Republicans need to become fluent in the regulatory burden imposed on farmers and they need to go farm by farm explaining to these people how the Democratic agenda is crushing them.

7. The Elderly v. the Poor: The elderly are abandoning the Democrats already, and Republicans need to help push that along. Republicans specifically need to talk about Medicare. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicare because it doesn’t pay enough. Despite this, Obama plans to steal another $500 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare and its subsidies to the poor. Republicans need to make this clear that the Democrats are stealing from the elderly to hand out the money to other groups.

8. Jews: The Republicans have had little success winning over Jews. There are two reasons for this. First, many Jews are simply scared of the Religious Right starting a second inquisition. I know that specific outreach has begun on this issue and that needs to continue. More importantly, as I mentioned with Hispanics the other day, Republicans have wrongly been treating Jews as a single-issue people, with that issue being Israel. But Israel clearly isn’t that strong of a pull. A better approach would be to talk to them about issues like Medicare (which resonates in Florida), the attacks on Wall Street (which resonate in New York), and this: the Republicans need to establish a counterpart to the Anti-Defamation League to focus exclusively on all the anti-Semitism coming from the left these days. We’ve seen this at Media Matters, at OWS and just generally from the left.


If Republicans do these things right, they can create tremendous friction within the Democratic alliance, perhaps even enough to shatter the party. The way to do this is to relentlessly point out the issues above. Do that through targeted advertisements, in speeches, on webpages/blogs and through media stunts by having our talking heads demand explanations from the Democrats on these wedge issues. Further, the Republicans should start crafting legislative proposals which put the groups above on opposing sides and forces the Democrats to pick sides.

At the same time, as I said the other day, Republicans needs to start reaching out to each of these groups on the issues that we have in common. Even taking away 5% of Democrats would guarantee a permanent Republican super-majority.

Thoughts?

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Primer: Gay Marriage 2012

I didn’t want to talk about gay marriage because, frankly, I don’t care. But the issue is having some fascinating ramifications, especially with Newsweek calling Obama our first gay president. Here are some things you may or may not realize yet.

● My Position: Before we begin, allow me to remind you of my positions on gay marriage: I am opposed to it on Libertarian grounds. To allow gay marriage would be to force people to accept something to which they are philosophically and morally opposed. Whether they are right or not, the government should not do that (LINK). And no, I don’t believe for a minute that an exception can be made to exempt people with philosophical or religious objections because those exceptions get undermined, as is happening in Britain (LINK). That said, I do believe this issue is lost (LINK), especially as this is a generational issue. However, we’re not there yet and, interestingly, Obama’s recent decision to (fake)embrace gay marriage is causing significant blowback. Observe. . .

● Whoops: Obama’s stance is not going doing well with his own troops or with independents. Five Senators facing re-election in conservative or battleground states have refused to back Obama’s mealy position: Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Machin (W. byGod Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.). Imagine that! These people are so scared of the issue that they won’t even take Obama’s toothless copout of feigning support for the issue in the abstract while wringing their hands that there is nothing they can do about it.

What this tells us is that gay marriage is highly unpopular in these states. And that means Obama’s stance has hurt him in Pennsylvania and Florida, both of which could be key states depending on how things go. And if Pennsylvania goes against Obama, so will Ohio. . . and Wisconsin. Heck, even in unionized Michigan, Obama only leads by 5% -- 45% to 40%.

More evidence for this self-inflicted harm comes from a recent Gallup poll, which found that 23% of independents say Obama’s gay-marriage stance will make them less likely to vote for him, while only 13% say it will make them more likely to vote for him. That’s a 2-1 split, which mimics all the other polls which show that independents are breaking against Obama by a wide margin. This was a mistake.

● Whoops II: Interestingly, the one person to really benefit from Obama’s gay marriage stance has been Romney. By simply repeating his opposition to gay marriage, Romney has given evangelicals an opportunity to jump on his bandwagon and they’ve done so with gusto. A recent poll showed that evangelicals support him by 67% to 22% over Obama. And that actually understates the support because that includes black evangelicals, who support Obama 94% to 6%. When they are factored out, Romney’s popularity among white evangelicals rises to 82% (up from 40% in October). So much for evangelicals sitting this one out.

● Whoops III: Now comes an interesting question. I wonder if Obama hasn’t killed gay marriage with his announcement? Here’s the thing. Gay marriage has always been a tricky issue for the Democrats. It’s pretty clear that gay marriage will win over the public in the near future. But until that time, offering support for gay marriage is career suicide outside of the big liberal states. So Democrats have needed to walk a fine line of offering enough support to make gays think they support them, without offering enough support to anger the public.

This has resulted in the strategy of getting gay marriage passed in the liberal states and then using that as a wedge to get the Federal government to impose gay marriage on the conservative states. That way, the Democrats in the conservative states can claim they had no hand in it. So far, that’s worked really well for them since the only alternative position was the one espoused by conservatives of total opposition to gay marriage.

But Obama just created a third alternative. He said that you could support gay marriage in principal, yet believe the issues must be decided by the states.

Think about this. What’s he done is create an out (no pun intended). Democrats all over the heartland can now proudly proclaim their 100% support for gay marriage while simultaneously claiming that their love and respect for the voters of their state, who don’t want it, prevents them from supporting it locally. This is the perfect evasion. And on a hot-button issue, politicians seek evasions.

I think Obama’s stance has set the gay marriage movement back for decades to come as Democrats will now abandon the all-or-nothing game and will latch onto, “yes, but not for us” position. This means gay marriage is unlikely to spread much beyond the handful of states which already allow it (currently, 12 states prohibit same-sex marriage by statute and 30 prohibit it in their constitution).

If I’m right, Obama won’t be remembered as the first gay President as Newsweek just declared, he will go down in history as the man who nearly killed the gay marriage movement. Interesting.

● Predictionmania!!: Finally, Rand Paul will be president one day. You heard it here first. Here’s my thinking. Ron Paul is leaving politics after decades of jousting at windmills. But believe it or not, he’s had some stunning success in the past 5-8 years in reshaping the economics of the Republican Party and he’s left a huge movement looking for an heir. Rand Paul is well suited to claim that mantle. But that movement has never been able to deliver Paul the nomination because Ron Paul’s Libertarianism scares the hell out of Social Conservatives, so why would this help Rand Paul? Because Rand Paul is different. Unlike Ron Paul, Rand has been staking out social conservative positions. On the gay marriage issue, for example, he came out solidly opposed to gay marriage and he did so by mentioning the Bible and saying we should not “give up our traditions. We’ve got 6,000 years of tradition.” Then he spoke of the need for “traditionalists” to save the Republic by defending the family. Said Paul:

“We’ve introduced the Life at Conception Act, the Pro-Life Act, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, I’m also co-sponsor of the Human Life Amendment. I’ve also been trying to defund Planned Parenthood. Anybody here for that?”

What Paul is doing is claiming Ron Paul’s economic mantle while simultaneously flirting with social conservatives. This is a truly winning strategy if he can pull it off, and I suspect he can. Unless Paul makes a mistake by going off a deep end somewhere, I would say he’s someone to watch as a Presidential candidate in 2020 or 2024.

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Sexy Currency

Let’s talk about sex. Whoo hoo! Yep, sex, sex, sex. It turns out Obama’s gay marriage stance isn’t going down too well. It’s now ok to look at kiddie porn in New York, so long as you don’t own it. And Canada is about to issue a pornographic $20 bill. Oh, yeah.

Issue One: Gay Rage. Yesterday, Obama came out of the closet on behalf of something he’s always believed in deeply but previously refused to support for no reason whatsoever except that he wasn’t evolved enough to act on his beliefs until Joe Biden evolved him: gay marriage. Yep. Now gay marriage will be the law of the land. Oh, wait. . . there’s some fine print here. Hmm. Has Obama lied again?

Indeed he has. Right after Obama decided to declare his support for gay marriage, people with brains (i.e. conservative) began to snicker that Obama was trying to mislead his supporters. By last night, his supporters had caught on. In a rather nasty article, Gawker noted that Obama’s promise was all smoke and mirrors. Observe:

“It seems fairly clear from the network's coverage that his announcement amounts to much less than meets the eye. He now believes that gay couples should be able to marry. He doesn't believe they have a right to do so. This is like saying that black children and white children ought to attend the same schools, but if the people of Alabama reject that notion—what are you gonna do?”

Oh, the irony of accusing Obama of supporting modern segregation. I love it when liberals get all self-righteous on each other. Perhaps they can now call him an Uncle Tom like they do to Clarence Thomas?

In any event, the tone of the article is downright rude, like when they called Obama’s state’s rights evasion: “a half-assed, cowardly cop-out.” And I suspect the tone will only get worse over the coming weeks because one thing the gay lobby is not is civil. The fun is just beginning and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time with his campaign struggling to find its footing.

Issue Two: I Own What? In 2009, Professor James D. Kent of Marist College in New York was convicted of promoting a sexual performance of a child and possession of child pornography, i.e. kiddie porn. But part of his conviction was just overturned. Why? Because the evidence was found in his web browser’s cache, which stores everything you’ve looked at, and he argued that he was not even aware his browser had a cache, so he can’t possibly have knowingly possessed the porn.

New York’s appellate level court agreed that images found in a cache are not proof of possession. Kent’s conviction still stands for the 13,000 images of 8-9 year old girls in lingerie which he had on his harddrive, but apparently those in the browser don’t count as him having “dominion and control over the images.” Now, on the one hand, I can understand that a browser may capture an inadvertent image. I’ve been re-directed to all kinds of places I never wanted to be and those images get into the cache, and it shouldn’t be a crime to have a couple such images stumble their way onto your computer. But give me a break, there is no doubt he was out there looking for this stuff and was just too stupid to clean out his cache. What this ruling does is essentially make is legal to look at kiddie porn in New York so long as you don’t save it to your harddrive. That’s like saying it should be illegal to possess heroin, but it’s not illegal to shoot up on it so long as you use somebody else’s stash.

Issue Three: Porno Dollars. Finally, Canada, i.e. Northern Maine, will be issuing a new $20 dollar bill in November, and it isn’t going over too well. That’s largely because they picked a stupid design. Apparently, a focus group which looked at the bill thought it was “too pornographic” because it contains three naked women clinging to the 9/11 Twin Towers (in America). Here’s the bill, eh:

Interestingly, the structure is not the 9/11 Twin Towers, it is a memorial called the Vimy Memorial, a wartime memorial honoring thousands of Canadian servicemen and which symbolizes the unity between France and Canada. And the topless chicks are known as the Chorus, and they represent Justice and Peace, Truth and Knowledge, Hope, Charity, Honor and Faith. Here is a photo of the memorial.

Personally, I think the bill is uglier than a sewer of Pelosi. Plus, I’m wondering why no one was offended by the swamp monster wearing the tee-shirt with the old lady on it? But I won’t laugh too hard at our neighbors from the Moose Realm because I’m sure our next dollar won’t be much better. In fact, here’s a sneak peek. . .

At least it’s not a damn coin.

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Time To Change Gay Marriage Strategy?

This is clearly my week for endearing myself to religious conservatives, so let's go for the unhappy trifecta! I think the fight against gay marriage is lost. Don't get me wrong, I'm still opposed to it, but I also think it's time to consider a change of strategy.

I’ve explained before why I oppose gay marriage. To summarize my position, the government cannot grant rights in a vacuum. If gays are given the rights of married couples, then those rights must come at the expense of other people’s rights. In this case, the rights the government would take away are (1) the rights of employers, who would become legally obligated to extend partnership benefits to gay couples, (2) churches, which could no longer refuse to recognize such marriages, and (3) taxpayers, who would be forced to bear the burden of subsidizing these new marriages through the government benefits that become available to married couples.

Thus, to extend marriage rights to gays, the government will take the property rights of businesses, the right to freedom of religious belief from churches, and will impose more burdens on the over-stretched taxpayers. I can see no justification for doing this based on a group that defines itself by its conduct rather than some innate characteristic. In other words, gays aren’t gay unless they act upon those impulses -- unlike blacks who are black no matter what they do. Thus, being gay is by definition a choice. And while gays may claim being gay is an impulse they cannot control, so is bestiality and serial killing, yet gays would not suggest extending rights to those groups. Thus, their argument is not principled and cannot support their claim.

Consequently, I oppose gay marriage.

And indeed, my fears are already being played out in England, where the government is forcing churches to provide equal services to gay couples and to hire gay employees, no matter what the church’s view on the morality of homosexuality might be. Consider this bit of incredible double-speak by The Economist explaining why this does not violate the freedom of religious belief:

“[The government] was not questioning the right of religious bodies to follow their own beliefs when hiring priests or imams; it merely wanted to clarify that, in recruiting for non-religious jobs (accountants, for example), churches must obey the law and refrain from discrimination against gays.”

I wonder if they would feel the same about the NAACP being forced to hire white racists, so long as they weren’t forced to hire them for their most senior positions?

In any event, on to the issue at hand. I think the writing is on the wall. Each liberal state, like New York, will slowly adopt gay marriage provisions. The conservative states are unlikely to at this time. However, even the conservative states will eventually cave in. For one thing, libertarians have wrongly fallen for the one-sided “we just want freedom” argument and have not considered the rights being taken. Moderates do not find homosexuality immoral and thus see no reason to oppose it -- a flawed bit of logic in American society, i.e. that having no reason to oppose something means a right thereto should exist. Thus, combining liberals, moderates and a chunk of the conservative ranks will be more than enough to eventually get gay rights passed.

What’s more, the pressure will increase when the world doesn't end. Little will change as a result of gay marriage laws. Cities won’t erupt into panic or fall into Sodom-like levels of debauchery and God’s not going to turn everyone in Boston into salt. . . though he should for several reasons. A small number of gays will marry, giving further proof they are only 1-2% of the population and not 10% as Kinsey claimed, and few people will even notice the difference unless they work in their firm’s HR department. If the world doesn’t end, then even conservative states will begin to wonder what the big deal is. And I suspect it will only be a matter of time before they follow suit.

So the thing to do now is to reconsider the strategy. And to do that, we need to consider what the goals are. If the goal is to change public perceptions about homosexuality, then a massive public relations campaign will be in order to explain why it should bother average Americans that there might be gays lurking in neighboring homes. This will be very difficult unless places like New York implode. Thus, a better strategy might be to figure out whose rights will be infringed upon and work to pass laws protecting those rights. For example, I would suggest legislation that:

(1) Prevents employers, businesses or landlords from being forced to recognize any marital arrangement they consider outside their moral beliefs and specifically granting these employers, businesses or landlords the right to discriminate against those types of marriages. Unfortunately, this would probably require a Constitutional change.

(2) Prevents churches from having to recognize any relationship, hire any person, or extend any right, privilege or benefit to any person where such an act would violate the church's religious doctrine. This would be consistent with the First Amendment and would probably work.

A better approach, however, might be to get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Let me ask this, has it helped or hurt the institution of marriage that the government has been recognizing and affirming marriages? I would say marriage is in much worse shape now that the government is involved -- as with everything else the government seeks to help. By making the government blind to marriage and returning this institution to churches, it would be entirely up to the churches and private employers, businesses, landlords and individuals if they choose to recognize and/or favor marriage.

This may sound radical, as indeed I thought it was when I first heard it, but it might be a good solution. It gets the government out of deciding what is moral and what isn't and away from social engineering. It also returns the role of the regulation of marriage to the churches, and thereby makes both stronger institutions again. Churches could require things like pre-marriage counseling, a waiting period, and consideration of numerous things the government doesn't ask anyone to think about. Indeed, this last point could be critical as removing the government from marriage would force people to take more care in arranging their affairs (e.g. inheritance, care of children in the event of death or divorce, etc.), things people now assume the government will do for them automatically. This should certainly force people to go into marriage with their eyes open.

Maybe a little bit of independence would be a good thing for all concerned?

Thoughts?

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(Un)Exempting Churches From Gay Rights Laws

One of the concerns religious groups raise whenever they are confronted with gay rights laws is that they will be forced to condone something they consider immoral. “Nonsense!” say the proponents of these laws, “we’ll exempt religious organizations from the law.” Well, England has now shown exactly what those exemptions are worth, and churches are right to be concerned -- especially since British leftism eventually infests our left as well.

Some time ago, England passed laws forbidding discrimination against homosexuals in hiring. At the time, those laws included an exemption for religious groups that consider homosexuality immoral. In the past month, the British Labour Party has tried to pass a law “clarifying” those exemptions. What they tried should send up huge red flags to anyone who thinks that people have the right to maintain their own beliefs.

Specifically, Labour tried to pass a law that expanded the anti-hiring-discrimination laws to all aspects of religious organizations, except for the hiring of clerical personnel. That's right, everyone except the actual priests, ministers, rabbis, shamans or imams.

Calling this a “cautious aim” and “fairly modest,” The Economist said:

“[The government] was not questioning the right of religious bodies to follow their own beliefs when hiring priests or imams; it merely wanted to clarify that, in recruiting for non-religious jobs (accountants, for example), churches must obey the law and refrain from discrimination against gays.”

Oh, is that all? So churches have the right to their beliefs, but they can only exercise those rights in rare occasions -- when it comes to choosing actual priests. For all other jobs, they need to follow the beliefs established by the government, instead of their own?

Does anyone see a problem with this? The Economist surely doesn't because they don't really believe churches should be doing this. But I wonder how they would feel if we looked at this principle more broadly. Indeed, while we’re busy defining when you can and can’t exercise your beliefs, why stop with sexual orientation? Why do we allow religious discrimination for example? Shouldn't we force churches to hire atheists? So long as we don’t require them to hire atheistic priests, then we aren’t really questioning their right to follow their own beliefs, are we?

No doubt The Economist would approve of that because they have over the years shown a pretty clear dislike for Christianity. But Christianity isn't the only religion. Maybe we should force Mosques to employ Jews and Synagogues to hire Muslims? I can't see why this would be a problem so long as they were free to pick their own imams and rabbis?

By the way, if you think this can't be a problem, let me point out part of an argument before the Supreme Court this week. In a case where the court is deciding whether universities can ban Christian groups who refuse to admit gay members, one of the justices asked the representative for the gay group: if we don't let the Christian group control its own membership, what keeps others who disagree with their views from flooding into the group and voting themselves into the leadership and, basically, taking over the group? The answer: well, they could go form a new group if that happened. Seriously? Ok, let's run with that...

With that in mind, let's not forget that these laws apply well beyond religious institutions as well. So shouldn't gay groups be forced to hire devout Catholics and Muslims. . . except for their most senior positions of course. Though, now that I think about it, I'm not even sure why we should exempt their senior positions as those aren't "religious" positions, are they? And while we're on a roll, why shouldn't pro-abortion groups be required to hire devout Roman Catholics? Shouldn't feminist groups be required to hire devout Muslims? And if not, why not. . . as The Economist says, it’s not like this will interfere with their beliefs. And if they don't like it, they can just go form another group, right?

Seriously, this shows the left’s promises for what they are: lies. They promise an exemption and then quickly redefine the exemption into absurdity and then eliminate it all together.

It also show the danger of letting the government decide what you can believe and when you can act on those beliefs. If we take this law seriously, then no group can be safe from a determined opposition seeking to infiltrate the group and destroy its message. . . all sanctioned with the force of law.

If you believe, as I do, that people have the right to their own beliefs, be they right, wrong, stupid, offensive or otherwise, then this is the sort of thing that should scare you: the government telling you when you can and cannot exercise your beliefs.

And if these things do happen, then activists on the right should get their resumes ready. It's open season on leftist interest groups!


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Why I Oppose Gay Marriage

Gay marriage is one of the most complex issues of the past twenty years. It is an issue that transcends ideology, despite the media’s attempt to paint this as the “intolerant right” versus the “victim left.” In fact, I know some of you favor allowing gay marriage. It is also one of the most contentious issues of our time because most of the arguments made are emotional in nature. I do not support gay marriage. Here is why.

Let me start by saying that I have nothing against gays. You can’t live in Washington, D.C. without meeting a good number and I’ve found most of them to be pleasant, decent people. But this issue isn’t about “like.” I like eight year olds and puppies too, but that doesn’t mean I think they should be allowed to marry. See, this issue isn’t about what I think or who I like, it isn’t about whether or not something is a sin, or my definition of morality, or whether or not it’s good for society or whether or not it’s been accepted historically. Those may sound like valid reasons for deciding this issue, but they aren’t. They are, in fact, entirely irrelevant. Because we are a constitutional democracy, the only thing that matters is the law.

The Law

Unlike other countries, the United States was formed by the consent of its citizens. The left likes to claim this is a difference without a distinction, but they are wrong. It matters very much. In other countries, the government can change the law as it sees fit. But in the United States, the powers of the government are expressly limited to those granted to it by the Constitution. All other powers are retained by the citizens.

Note: This is not to say the Constitution can’t be changed. It can, but it must be done through the amendment process, with the consent of the public, not by simple fiat.

Why does this matter? After all, aren’t we only talking about giving some people new legal rights? Well, it matters because law is what is called a “zero-sum game.” That means you cannot give a right to one person without taking a right from another -- every right given to one under the law imposes an equal restriction on another.

In the case of gay marriage, the deprivation includes depriving others of the right to refuse to recognize the relationship and all that is associated with that. This would include, for example, (1) employers, who would become legally obligated to extend partnership benefits to gay couples, (2) churches, which could no longer refuse to recognize such marriages, and (3) taxpayers, who would be forced to bear the burden of subsidizing these new marriages through the government benefits that become available to married couples.

Whether or not you like those rights is irrelevant (there are many rights people have that I don’t like and if you want to start playing the game of letting government take away rights because we don’t approve of them, expect to have no rights very quickly). The fact is these are rights, and before the government can take them away on behalf of gay marriage advocates, those advocates must show that their right to marry is legally superior to the rights of the people to refuse to recognize those marriages. They have yet to meet that burden.

Why Pro-Gay Marriage Arguments Fail

Gay groups generally make two kinds of arguments for gay marriage. First, they argue that they are a distinct social group akin to blacks or women, who should be given “equal protection” under the law. Secondly, they argue that it is improper for the government to grant heterosexuals the privilege of marriage, but to deny it to them. Neither argument has merit.

Gays Are Not Like Other Minorities

The primary argument made by advocates of gay marriage is that they are a distinct minority social group akin to blacks. Thus, they argue that having a right to gay marriage is a civil right akin to ending legal discrimination against blacks. But the two groups are not comparable.

First, there is a key difference between “blackness” and “gayness.” Being gay requires action -- engaging in homosexual activity. Being black does not. Our Constitution has never recognized a minority based on behavior rather than status. The reasons are obvious. If we were to start creating minorities based on behavior, anyone could claim minority status -- gays, people with any number of sexual fetishes, hunters, meat eaters, fight-club members, etc. This would make an unworkable mockery of the law.

And while gays will argue that they are like blacks because “they were born that way,” that assertion does nothing to change this analysis. For example, allowing self-report to form the basis for awarding minority status would open the door for anyone to claim minority status by making a similar claim. In that regard, serial killers, pedophiles, addicts, shoplifters and thrill seekers all already claim to be “born that way.” Does that mean they deserve legally protected status? If it doesn’t, why should gays be different?

Moreover, the mindset of the minority group has never been the relevant factor in deciding whether or not to grant legally protected status -- it is the ability of others to identify them that matters. In other words, we don’t extend legal protections to blacks because they feel that they are black, we extend legal protections to blacks because others can spot them instantly and single them out.

Further, under our legal system, we only extend such protections to groups that were historically legally discriminated against. Blacks were once held as slaves, were denied the right to vote and hold property, and have been systematically excluded from the economy through a series of laws like the Jim Crow laws. The same is true for women. But none of this is true for gays. Sure, you can find some laws that prohibited gay sex, but that is no different than laws that prohibit unlicensed people from practicing medicine or driving. The point is that there were no laws to deprive gays of their property or their legal rights like there were with protected minorities. And before you tell me that people informally discriminated against gays, consider that people discriminate against slobs today -- does that make them a protected group? It is prior legal discrimination that matters.

Thus, the reasons put forth for granting gays protected status simply don’t justify the granting of such a status.

Heterosexual Marriage Is Justified, Gay Marriage Is Not

The other argument gay groups make is that because marriage discriminates by providing benefits that singles cannot get, and the government may not discriminate in handing out privileges, the government cannot allow heterosexual marriage without also allowing gay marriage. But this argument ignores the fact that the government can discriminate where it has a sufficient justification, which it does in this case.

Contrary to what gay groups argue, the government can discriminate in handing out privileges. It does this every time it denies a 12 year old a drivers license, every time it requires a license to enter a profession, and every time it means-tests benefits. The question is whether or not the government has a sufficient public interest in allowing the discrimination. In the case of heterosexual marriage, it does.

To understand this point, one must first understand the reason the government became involved in recognizing marriages in the first place. Marriage began as a religious institution, but was quickly adopted by the state as a means of handling inheritance. When Napoleon ushered in the era of nation states, with their massive citizen armies rather than small professional armies, marriage because a way to encourage “child production.” Toward the modern era, marriage became a way of protecting women at a time when women had few legal rights outside of marriage. For example, despite feminists' claims to the contrary, marriage allowed the state to protect women from men who would marry them for their money and then run away (polygamy and adultery laws), protect women from sexual abuse (sodomy laws and later laws against marital rape), protect women from their husband’s creditors, and finally protect women from being left without support following a divorce.

These reasons constitute the state’s interest in maintain the institution of marriage despite its discriminatory effects. But none of these justifies extending marriage to gays. Inheritance can be handled outside of marriage now. Gays do not produce children. Nor is marriage needed to protect gays. Thus, this argument fails as well.

Moreover, even if gays were right about their assumption that there is no special justification for allowing heterosexual marriage, that argument still would not justify extending marriage to gays. Instead, it would only justify getting the government back out of the marriage business. You don’t correct discrimination by adding new members to the discriminating class.

Conclusion

All in all, gay marriage advocates have been unable to show that they deserve protected status or that it is improper to allow heterosexual marriage without also allowing gay marriage. Thus, there is no legal justification for allowing gay marriage. And under our system it is simply not proper to give a legal right just because we like that right.

Since allowing gay marriage would require the government to force millions of people to extend benefits against their will, act against their religious beliefs or pay more in taxes to support something they oppose, I cannot support such an extension given the lack of a compelling legal justification for giving gays such legal rights.

Moreover, at each turn, I find myself facing the troubling aspect that all of the arguments made by gay advocates leave me wondering why those arguments should apply only to gays. Why couldn’t groups of three or four or ten adults make the exact same arguments? Why couldn’t children make the same arguments? Or bothers and sisters who wanted to marry? Or what about people who want to marry their pets? And why can’t these same arguments be used to expand legal rights well beyond marriage? If these are valid arguments, what right do gays have to say, “they apply to us, but won’t apply to anyone else,” and what right do we have to accept that reason for gays, but not others?

Ultimately, accepting these arguments is truly the slippery slope that leads to legal chaos. Not to mention the practical problems. Heck, how do you even know if someone is gay? What’s to keep a couple friends from using such a law to take advantage of the system? You would be a fool not to be “married” to someone if this becomes law. . . a whole world of benefits, from health insurance to pension plans to per diems on travel awaits.

That’s why I oppose gay marriage.

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Obama Agenda: Gays

One of the interesting findings from last week’s Commentarama Poll was that few people understand Obama’s agenda. So let’s see if we can’t flesh that out (assuming there is an agenda). Fortuitously, Saturday night, Obama reaffirmed his agenda vis-à-vis gays.

Prior to the election, Obama backed gay rights in speeches and legislation 18 times, though as a candidate he refused to back gay marriage. This weekend he became only the second President to speak at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign (a gay group). In his speech, Obama repeated the following promises:

• To work with the Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which keeps states from recognizing gay marriages in other states. Right now 29 states have changed their constitutions to ban gay marriage. Six states recognize gay marriage and six more provide some level of spousal rights to gay couples. Though Obama has refused to outright support gay marriage, repealing the DOMA would be the same thing.

• To expand hate-crime laws to include sexual orientation through passage of the Matthew Sheppard Act, which has now been attached to the Department of Defense budget.

• To “reinvigorate enforcement” of hate crimes by the Department of Justice’s Criminal Section.

• To overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that allows the military to expel openly gay soldiers.

• To prohibit work place discrimination based on sexual orientation or “gender identity or expression” (e.g. transgender and cross-dressing), by passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

• To appoint openly gay individuals, like David Heubner, who was appointed as the first openly gay ambassador to New Zealand.

In June of this year, Obama also extended some benefits to gay partners of federal employees, though he did not extend full benefits. The benefits extended will:

• Open up long-term care insurance.

• Allow federal employees to use their sick leave to care for a gay partner or the partner’s children.

• Allow gay partners of foreign-service employees to use medical facilities at overseas posts and get evacuations if necessary.

• Include same-sex partners and their children when calculating family size for overseas housing allocations.

• Extend current anti-discrimination rules in the federal workforce to cover transgender employees.

However, Obama did not extend the most sought after benefits -- health insurance and retirement benefits.

Despite these promises and actions, gay groups remain upset at Obama because he continues to refuse to endorse gay marriage. They are also upset that he did not extend full benefits to gay partners of federal workers. And they are upset that he refuses to set specific timelines for the promises above.

None of this should be surprising. As noted in my article outlining the make up of the Democratic Party, gays are one of the up and coming power tribes within the party, though they don’t control the leadership. Thus, it is in Obama's interest to promise them what they want, but to deliver sparingly, lest they get what they want and stop supporting the other identity tribes. And that is exactly what Obama has done here -- he's handed out a taste only. If he had wanted to, he could have done much more and could have set a time table for the rest. . . but that's not how tribal reciprocity works.

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