Social conservatives who have dominated the Republican Party for the last decade define those core issues in harshly didactic terms deriving from religious roots.  Abortion, gay marriage, and a more nebulous but passionately held commitment to “family values” are what they see as the heart of the Republican Party.  They tend to resent calls by “moderates” to compromise as they see such calls as nothing less than an effort to read God Himself out of the party.  More pragmatically, social conservative leaders note the longstanding success of such principles in successfully building and maintaining a movement with strong double roots in both rural and suburban regions.

In recent years, social conservatives have been reinforced by an alliance of convenience with some rather questionable characters arising from the migration of Dixiecrats into the Republican Party. With strong roots in the South, these cultural conservatives have supplemented social conservatism with disdain for immigration as a threat to American cultural identity.  Stopping “amnesty” and demonizing any cultural or educational institution not encapsulated by a NASCAR race is the core issue for cultural conservatives.

Cultural conservatives also linked together with national security conservatives left over from the Cold War.  These national security conservatives were reinvigorated by 9/11 and place the strong pursuit of the global war against Islamic extremism as the core cause of the party.

In the aftermath of electoral meltdowns in both 2006 and 2008, however, this tripartite hegemony has come to be identified as pathological by old-style fiscal conservatives, usually dubbed as “moderates” due to their dissent from social and cultural conservatives.  The argument from the fiscal conservatives is that both events and demographic trends have intervened to destroy the viability of the tripartite coalition.  The myriad failures in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have served to undermine Republicans’ claim to be the safest stewards of national security.  This whittled down the numbers and enthusiasm of the national security conservatives.  Meanwhile, shifts in the cultural and moral ethos of younger generations have eroded the numbers that could be marshalled by social conservatives even while intensifying their self-perceptions as a beseiged minority.  And the undertones of racism and intolerance that too often infest the anti-immigration movement served to make cultural conservatives toxic, further driving away younger voters and centrists.  Fiscal conservatives thus argue that to renew the commitment to any of the tripartite groups’ preferred core is a suicide pact for the party, condemning it to permanent minority status regardless of the particular virtues of their moral claims.

The only option left, say the fiscal conservatives, is therefore to return to the party’s generational roots in pro-business, low-tax, pro-growth economics.

The trouble is how to craft that into a workable message during times of economic meltdown, necessary-evil government bailouts running into the trillions of dollars, and spiraling deficits in the midst of two continuing wars.  No horror movie hack writer could top this monster of a political problem.  But it is exactly the monster that the Republican Party will have to find a way to slay if it is to be able to function as an effective opposition, let alone a credible challenger in future elections.

The fundamental truth here is that Steele and the fiscal conservatives are right — the key issues of the day are economic and demographics make cultural and social conservatism secondary bases for the party anyway.  Any new Republican coalition will have to be built around responses to economic issues, not attempts to reconstitute the crumbling social or cultural bases.  In selecting which issues are “mandatory” for Republicans versus those with which the party needs to accept compromise and dissent, Republicans will need to take lessons from Democrats’ successes in dealing with their peacenik elements — accommodating and including, but not allowing them to control and purify everything.

And time is short.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Jamie’s also shrewd in noting that the 1950s nuclear family has special theological salience for Mormons:

According to Mormon dogma, marriage extends into the afterlife and couples continue to have “spirit children” who populate extraterrestrial worlds.

A secular amendment to a secular constitution was passed partly in order to protect the integrity of “spirit children.”

This mocking representation of LDS teaching is a “red flag” to those familiar with anti-Mormon literature.  In point of fact, Mormons do believe in eternal heterosexual marriage and family, but the bits about “spirit children” and “extraterrestrial worlds” are speculative extensions on the official LDS teaching at best.  Their inclusion here serves no purpose except to make Mormons look bizarre and strange in a theological sense irrelevant to Sullivan’s core concern with the church.  Sullivan is indirectly and, I am quite certain, without his knowledge drawing on a long history of anti-Mormon and self-styled “anti-cult” hatred and misrepresentation championed by fringe groups of Christianist evangelicals that are far more Sullivan’s natural enemies than the Mormons are.  In his anger over the outcome of Prop 8, Sullivan is spraying fire indiscriminately, undermining his own cause in the process.

Also, the very distorted version of the LDS teaching that Sullivan and his underlying source are mocking is far from the reason that many Mormons (tragically, I believe) supported Proposition 8.  His insertion of it in his post has no apparent relationship to the actual political issues.  Sullivan offers no evidence that such considerations were actually the motivations for any of the Mormons who gave money or time in support of Prop 8.  It is just bald religious stereotyping and bigotry against a group that Sullivan believes deserves it because of their opposition to gay rights.

I used to really enjoy Andrew Sullivan as an incisive and unusually nuanced thinker in the political blogosphere.  But his succumbing to Palin Derangement Syndrome during the campaign (Sullivan led the charge to target Palin’s daughter, among other outrages) seems to have been exacerbated by a Mormon Derangement Syndrome now.  And I think if he would take time to look around at his allies in the anti-Mormon cause of twisting and mocking Mormon theological beliefs, he wouldn’t like the company he is now in.  And his hypocritical embrace of flagrant religious bigotry here serves only to undermine his cause of promoting tolerance.  For example, where I am personally on Sullivan’s side in regards to Prop 8, I find myself unwilling to become a very active supporter of the gay rights movement as long as it continues to tarnish itself with a turn towards its own version of vile hate speech.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

The problem I have is - what the hell is the point of organising yourselves now fools? This should have been done before the vote, no? This is what happened. Most people thought Prop 8 wasn’t going to pass because California is the liberal hub of America after all. Except, money poured in from the Mormon Church and religious conservatives also rallied hard to ensure a high-turnout on election day. By a small measure the vote was passed and people were stunned. There has been some discussion about the lack of proper strategy prior to the elections, but all that is no use now.

Liberals in America are generally more organised than lefties here, mostly because civic participation and activism is just more common there. Nevertheless, we don’t seem to get that political victory should not be taken for granted ever. We don’t seem to get that for progress we must organise instead of lamely complaining from the sidelines, like Italians do. We need to discuss and take forward strategy, rather than lamely fighting on the sidelines with each other (which makes the far-left so electorally useless). Prop 8 was the wake-up call for liberals there. I wonder what will it take here. Maybe when Nadine Dorries becomes Home Secretary for the Conservatives.

The protests are remarkable not only in the show of support for marriage euqality, but in the fact that they were largely organized virally, through facebook, blogs, instant messages and word of mouth. No slick sound systems or laminated signs, most protests had a few megaphones and a whole lot of homemade signs. Another common factor from different rallies is the positivity. By and large, though there was some anger, the common theme was being there in support of gay marriage and above all the optimism that eventually it will happen.

Andrew Sullivan has a great roundup of the rallies. My personal favorite is the Chicago rally featuring a picture of a (straight) married couple in full wedding regalia and a host of bridesmaids holding up a rainbow flag in support.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

To those who argue that denying marriage to loving gay couples is all about protecting children: why then are you not fighting to prevent gay couples from adopting?

Arkansas has recently shown itself to be consistent on this point. It has passed a law that denies any unmarried person from adopting a child or being a foster parent. Since a child really needs a mommy and a daddy, we’ll make sure that children (1000 up for adoption in Arkansas) remain orphans unless an ideal family is found. After all, better in an orphanage than with two same-sex parents, or even a sinful lifelong heterosexual couple. Utah is the only other state that has this law. I find it hideous and very much against the best interests of a child, but at the very least it shows ideological consistency.

In all but two states of the union, marriage remains off limits to gays and lesbians. However adoption and fostering children is allowed in most. In some gay couples can adopt and foster with an acknowledgement of their being two parents. In all the rest of the states, a single person can adopt a child, though authorities know full well that there will be two parents in the home.

My question to those who feel so strongly that they are doing a good deed by denying marriage rights to others is: If it’s important that gays not get married, how can it possibly be less important to prevent them from raising children?

How can it be that allowing two people of the same gender to get married is a threat, but allowing two people of the same gender to raise a child is less of a threat? Shouldn’t protecting children be the very first priority? And yet I see no huge campaigns to outlaw parenthood for gays and lesbians. I  don’t see the LDS Church asking it’s faithful to pour millions of dollars and hours into a fight to prevent gays from raising kids. I don’t see preachers and priests from all sorts of denominations asking their faithful to fight gay adoption. Why?

Once you allow gays to have kids, and there are thousands of gay families accross the US, it’s just as well you allow the parents to marry. If you’re allowing children to be in a same-sex household, you’d do well to give those children the legal protections that having married parents gives them. If you do not believe that children should be raised by gay parents, then you would do well to fight the gay adoption battle first, since it is directly responsible for gay families in a way gay marriage is not.

Of course you could never prevent Lesbians from having children unless you got very draconian about the matter. Lesbians can carry their own children. Even if you were to prevent unmarried couples from fertilization by sperm-donors, there are ways to achieve it without doctors help. You would not prevent two women from being mothers unless you were willing to take away their children by force. But of course that would be terrible PR, wouldn’t it?

So, I ask you, which is it? Do you really believe that gays getting married is worse than gays raising children? Or is it that while playing with the destinies of adults in pursuit of a non-existent ideal Ozzie and Harriet world is acceptable, the mind rebels at the idea of playing with the wellbeing of children in a similar manner.  Orphans will exist, children at risk will exist, and gay couples will exist. There will never be enough heterosexual young married couples to take them all in, so the realistic choice becomes whether you leave those children alone or give them to willing caretakers. At that point, I think even people who are uncomfortable with homosexuality mostly understand that a parent is better than no parent, and that two mommies is better than no mommie.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I am somewhat consoled by the fact that the passage of this Proposition has seemingly woken up the gay and gay-friendly communities, sparking the kinds of passion in favor of their rights that was previously held only by those who wish to deny them those rights. They finally had tasted victory, and are no longer content to accept “their place” below their heterosexual peers.

However there is such a thing as going too far. Protesting institutions that overtly supported the ban is fine. Even calling for boycotts against businesses that supported the ban is acceptable. Targetting individuals is not fine, and should stop immediately.

I’ve read a few examples of this happening already. Whole businesses being targeted for protest or boycott because some prominent member (usually a Mormon) donated to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign. Though legally within their right to do so, I believe that it is fundamentally wrong (and counter-productive) to do this.

The case that sent me over the edge to the point I feel I must say something was the Coyote Restaurant in LA. The Coyote Restaurant is an establishment with 89 employees, some gay, and a very diverse clientele, overwhelmingly gay-friendly. So did the business donate to the Yes-on-Prop. 8 campaign? No. Did the owner do so of his own accord? Nope. Well did a large portion of the employees put money into the campaign? No again. Marjorie Christoffersen, who is the daughter of the current owner of the business, donated to the campaign.

Considering the All Hell that has broken out because of this you would expect the donation to be huge, something that could actually impact the campaign itself. But Marjorie donated a measly $100. Because of this people on the other side have called for a boycott of her fathers business, endangering the jobs of 89 people, almost all of whom are entirely gay friendly. Heavyweights in the blogosphere like AmericaBLOG have targeted the business directly.

The matter came to a head when a meeting was called by the restaurant to explain their position. The place filled to the brim with very angry members of the gay community and journalists. This is how it started:

A floor manager stood in the middle of the back room where the community conference and stated that “El Coyote DOES NOT share the same views as Marjorie.” He stated that 89 families were going to be affected by this boycott and one of the community members screamed out “18,000 families already HAVE been affected!”

It went downhill from there.

The worst part was when Marjorie came out, trembling with fear and sadness, to try to explain herself.

She asked for forgiveness for being SO emotional and said that “El Coyote is as diverse as it’s clientele. Customers are considered part of the family and I responded to the call of the Mormon Church to donate [towards the ban on same sex marriage].”

As she continued to speak it seemed even MORE clear that she was distancing herself from El Coyote.

Marjorie began talking about how much her Aunt had done to support gays and the plight of the GLBT Community since opening the restaurant and asked that “[she] personally take responsability for [the] blame and anger” because she said she was aware of the boycott and pending protest slated for Thursday (tomorrow 11/13) night outside the front restaurant.

The crowd harangued her until she broke down crying and was taken away by her daughters. A pitiful sight, and one that manages to anger me as much the denial of rights based on misguided notions of “protecting” the non-threatened institution of marriage.

The following is addressed to any gay marriage supporter who may be reading this and might be inclined to agree with those attacking this woman. What the HELL are you thinking? You are targeting what by all accounts is a gay friendly business because one single member of the 100 person group is opposed to you? They have pledged $5,000 to two different Gay Rights organizations to demonstrate their support of the community, and you are willing to hang them out to dry because of the actions of one person?

In what universe is this even normal? And the treatment of the individual is not much better. She is a private citizen and you are metaphorically lynching her for donating a modest sum to a cause you oppose. She sounds sincere when she says that she cares for gays. Though I’m aware of the insufficiency of caring for someone you are willing to strip of rights, we aren’t talking about a Fred Phelps here. It looks very much like a bewildered and frightened woman who never dreamed her donation would spark this much vitriol.

What exactly are you aiming to achieve here? Who are you trying to convince? People like Marjorie will not be convinced by an angry mob calling for her head. Her gay friends can and should confront her on a personal level and say how disappointed they are, how personally this hurts them. People who are on the fence will be 100% turned off by this. I’m 100% in the pro-marriage camp and my first impulse was to think that marriage licences should be taken away from everyone, gay or straight, who enjoyed ganging up on this lady. Undecideds can only look at this and decide you are a lot more about hate than love.

Being angry about this is good and normal. Refusing to patronize businesses that have made a clear statement against marriage equality, a perfectly acceptable form of free speech. Ganging up on a lone woman because she holds a view you disagree with profoundly and threatening the livelihood of almost one hundred marginally related people is totally unacceptable. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Note: I’d like to ask commenters to please not turn this into a debate on the issue of marriage itself or homosexuality generally, for good or ill. I am denouncing the tactic. I do not believe that the tactic itself reflects how right or wrong a movement is, but yes how civilized. As an exercise, picture this sort of thing with two different scenarios: one with a subject you feel passionately about in favor, and one against. Try to see if your opinion changes based on the underlying subject. Hint: it shouldn’t

NOTICE TO READERS: Unfortunately, due to the repeated posting of both express and implied threats of violence, we have been forced to close the comments thread.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

As reported earlier today, they declared war on Catholics and Mormons immediately after Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, was passed by a major of California voters. Soon after they also started to target African Americans who, like Catholics and Mormons, voted for the ban in big numbers.

Now, they have taken their attempts to take revenge one step further, and a angry left blogger, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog.com leads the way: he has called on his fellow activists and everyone else to boycott Utah.

Why Utah, you ask? Because Utah is the home of the Mormon Church or the Church of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon Church pushed the ban quite aggressively, donating millions of dollars to the pro-Proposition 8 campaign.

Aravosis and others have taken the stance of the Mormon church as a declaration of war, and are now going all out, thereby displaying their hatred, anger, viciousness and lack of moral values.

The anger coming from this side of the political spectrum in recent days has been shocking, breath taking. These people are not reasonable activists, willing to accept the outcome of democratic elections, but hateful, angry radicals willing to get rid of democracy altogether in order to accomplish their goal.

One would almost dare these individuals to take it one step further; singling out Mormons is unfair. Do the same, then, for Catholics, white protestants, African Americans and everyone else who voted for Proposition 8. Instead, they show just how biased and intolerant they truly are themselves; their complaints about ‘intolerance’ from the other side are increasingly hypocritical.

A word of caution to these people - and this is coming from the perspective of someone who believes it should be legal: you’ll lose the battle if you try to turn this into a major cultural war. You’ll be squashed, destroyed, without any hope of every reaching your goal.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.

This will get my name scratched of the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever.

Finally, I’m searching for some exit poll data from California. I’ll eat my shorts if gay and lesbian voters went for McCain at anything approaching the rate that black voters went for Prop 8.

It's interesting to me how mainstream organizations (oh, excuse me, I meant a few gay white guys) are only marginally racist (and yet they don't even have signs printed off in different languages despite the fact that these organizations exist in one of the most diverse freaking states in the nation), but Black folks (and as usual, the marginalized Latino population) are *hugely* homophobic--homophobic enough, in fact, to deny all the mainstream white gay folks their rights.

But what really gets me is how freaking clueless us Black and Latinos really are. As one commenter noticed:

it's bizarre that you're talking about this. i just walked into work (in beverly hills) and sat down. the only two co-workers of mine that are in at the moment are black. we've spent weeks talking about politics, we all watched the debates together, etc. I just mentioned my shock and disgust at prop 8 getting passed. they didn't say anything and quietly went back to work.

what.

the.

FUCK.

It's a good thing that we have gay white folks running around covertly quizzing Black folks on their voting records. What better way could there be to let Black folks know that they were supposed to vote for Proposition 8 because they owed white folks something?

And never you fear, the quizz master will be sure to quizz Latinos about their votes once he's figured out how to covertly ask questions in Spanish...

My, oh my, how far we've come since the days when racism existed...

::Queue La Macha pointing ironically at the ironic title of this ironic post::

via/racialicious
source/SLOG
title via/

Even as African-American and Latino voters were a powerful force in boosting America's first black president to victory, in California they also were crucial to passing Proposition 8, a ballot measure labeled, "Eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry."

Exit polls showed that 70 percent of black voters, and a majority of Latino voters, voted yes on Proposition 8, one likely reason why the measure won a slim majority in Los Angeles County, where pre-election polls had suggested it would lose, even though it lost by a huge margin in the Bay Area.

But like I mentioned yesterday, while I don't deny that the Black and Latin@ communities have some big time issues with queer hate, I also think gay organizations have to confront their very real racism within their organizing strategies. For example:

Gloria Nieto had a sense of those demographic forces, too. When Nieto, a lead organizer for the No on Proposition 8 campaign in San Jose, wanted to distribute campaign signs in Spanish and Vietnamese this fall, she had to get them made herself because the statewide campaign only had signs in English.

What this suggests to me is that communities of color have their problems--but largely white organizations seem to not value those communities until the time comes when they need them for their own agendas, and even then not so much.

Will gay organizers do anything to confront this problem? Or will they hide their racism behind "They're just conservative" excuses? The answer remains to be seen.