Ramifications

Intolerance Is Not a 'Value'

The writer of this article captures my reasons for loathing, above all else about George W. Bush and his party, their willingness to use people's fear of homosexuality as a tool in a political campaign. After a moving story about a wonderful teacher he had as a child who, years later, finally came out, the writer imagines how the evangelicals who delivered for Bush might treat that teacher today if he lived openly with his partner.

In the new world order dictated by champions of "moral values," this wonderful, caring teacher might be branded dangerous. Emboldened by national conservative leaders, the town's evangelicals -- and there are plenty of them -- could well have raised a hue and cry to keep this teacher and "his kind" away from their children. And the town's young people would have been denied the chance to have their lives shaped by a remarkable educator.

By supporting Bush, Republicans who don't agree with these sorts of behavior have given their approval to it nonetheless, helping Bush to victory even as he worked to gain votes by having his surrogates stir up the worst impulses in potential voters. The ill effects of that frenzy-whipping won't just disappear:

Here's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the machinations of Karl Rove and company. Fear isn't some emotion that can be easily bottled back up after it's been -- viciously -- unleashed. It isn't a once-every-four-years vehicle that can be wheeled out for a few months, then stowed back in the garage to be retooled for the next election cycle. Encouraging fundamentalist preachers to pound their pulpits and inveigh against gay people has consequences. It puts men and women in communities across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more despicable than creating a phony political issue (just how many gay couples are clamoring for marriage certificates in the state of Ohio, anyhow?) and preying on people's prejudices.

So now it's up to discerning Republicans to wrestle with this quandary: You won all right, but at what cost? What happened to the party that once shared Abraham Lincoln's faith in the "better angels of our nature"?

The writer doesn't take it quite far enough, though. It's also up to discerning Democrats to ask why WE didn't make this issue an appeal to those same better angels. Why, if we were going to go down to defeat by not fighting fire with fire on the gay marriage issues, couldn't the Democrats have stood up and said, for instance, "You may not approve of homosexuality. You may cringe at the sight of two men kissing. But we as a people have decided that the rules that govern our public life and the dictates of our religious beliefs are separate things, and this separation has served us well for more than two centuries. We as a nation have also continuously moved toward inclusion and equality and away from division and inequity. By granting same-sex couples the same rights under the law as opposite-sex couples, we continue down this road to inclusion and equality. We do not have to morally approve of a person's choices to offer them rights that others take for granted. We are wise enough as people to decide for ourselves how we deal with those whose choices we disapprove of on an individual basis; we are accomplished enough as parents to teach our children the ways in which we hope they will choose to lead their lives. We are strong enough as a nation to offer equal rights to all our countrymen and women without fearing for the moral fabric that binds us together."

But no Democrat said that, or anything like it. They ducked and dodged the issue, thinking they could drive it from people's minds. If they had played it up instead, and presented it as an issue of basic fairness in keeping with a long national tradition, could things have turned out any worse electorally than they did anyway? And wouldn't the party at least have had its dignity as a comfort for the cold months and years to come?

Anyhow, I highly recommend the entire article. Pass it on to Republicans who don't vote that way because they hate gays and lesbians, but because they believe in some other aspect of the G.O.P. platform and hold their noses on the anti-gay vitriol. They're the folks we need to take their party back.