Purify Your Bride

“Blacks and women did not have the right to vote,” DeGeneres responded. “I mean, women just got the right to vote in 1920. Blacks didn’t have the right to vote until 1870. And it just feels like there is this old way of thinking that we are not all the same. We are all the same people, all of us. You’re no different than I am. Our love is the same. To me — to me, what it feels like — just, you know, I will speak for myself — it feels — when someone says, ‘You can have a contract, and you’ll still have insurance, and you’ll get all that,’ it sounds to me like saying, ‘Well, you can sit there; you just can’t sit there.’ That’s what it sounds like to me. It feels like — it doesn’t feel inclusive…It feels — it feels isolated. It feels like we are not — you know, we aren’t owed the same things and the same wording.”

Said McCain, softly, “Well, I’ve heard you articulate that position in a very eloquent fashion. We just have a disagreement. And I, along with many, many others, wish you every happiness.”

We just have a disagreement? What kind of pathetic response is that? Even the word “softly” is pretty telling. He was shrinking from the debate. This is a man who wants to be president. He does not shrink from many debates. Why does he shrink from this one? The effect is to make people believe there is no argument against gay marriage.

The response could have been very effective. DeGeneres uses the word “feels” 5 times in her argument. Could he at least have asked whether feelings were the most important consideration here? Maybe even said a few words about how valuable the institution of marriage is to society and destroying it because a few people’s feelings are hurt is just not good policy. Is that too much to ask?

I would even have brought up the idea of children. Now that is asking a lot of a politician to connect marriage and family to the upbringing of children. Still I can dream of a day when we have leaders capable of elementary moral reasoning. Certainly that day is not now.

Abortion is another issue where the Republicans have rarely made an argument. Sure they have taken a prolife position but when is the last time you heard a prominent Republican give the reasons why the prolife position is correct? They give the reasons for their views on health care, Iraq, and immigration. They make very aggressive arguments there attacking everything about the Democratic positions both fairly and unfairly. Why not give do the same on the abortion issue? It makes people assume there is no argument to be made.

It is like the Republicans have bought into the notion that these issues are only opposed by religious arguments. The notion that natural law should be arguable outside any religious assumptions doesn’t seem to have clicked in. They seem to feel it is up to pastors and priests to make the case for defending life and defending marriage. I wish they would do that more often and at greater length as well. But in a pluralistic society we need to be able to argue these question without assuming the bible is true. It can be done and it is being done. It is just not done by the political leaders that the social conservatives elect. They have been ineffective at passing laws social conservatives like because the courts strike them down. They have also been ineffective as spokesmen for the social conservative issues. They have received a ton of support in many forms. Votes, money, endorsements on a wide variety of media, campaign volunteers. The republicans have gotten huge help from social conservatives. They have given precious little in return.