When you write about social conservative wingnuts day in, day out, the question always comes up: are these people stupid, evil, or both? With some of the leaders, you get the sense that they’re evil, and that they’re simply preying on people who fit the “stupid” category. But all too often, it feels like they’re just stupid. Science says this hunch has something to back it up:
You’ve always had an inkling that this might be true, and now here comes Science to validate your gut: children with low IQs tend to grow up to be prejudiced adults who often adopt socially conservative ideologies. The “liberal elite” is not in your imagination, friends. Fox News viewers really are that dumb!
[...]
The first study examined two groups of British adults, one born in 1958 and the other born in 1970. Both groups were assessed for intelligence at age 10 or 11, and then a followup was conducted when they were between the ages of 30 and 33. During the initial test, children were asked to complete tasks that tested their abilities to reason and remember. During the followup two decades later, researchers assessed the subjects’ level of prejudice and degree of socially conservative views. “Social conservatism” was determined by asking subjects to respond to a series of questions like “Family life suffers if mom is working full time” or “I wouldn’t mind working with other races.” In this study, children with low scores on the first set of tests tended to grow up to exhibit prejudiced and socially conservative viewpoints on the second set of tests.
And here’s the gay part:
The second study analyzed by the Canadian researchers examined Americans’ attitude toward homosexuality. The study found that people with poorer abstract reasoning skills tended to be more homophobic, even when researchers controlled for education level.
The Canadian researchers hypothesize that people who “have trouble grasping the complexity of the world” may tend toward prejudice and conservatism because they crave structure and can’t process chaos and nuance. Religion, authoritarianism, and isolationism appeal to a desire for order in a world that offers few absolutes.
Yep, sounds familiar! It’s the low-road anti-gay activists who fit this bill, in my estimation. The ones who lead small hate groups and whatnot. Also, Rick Santorum.
In the wake of the Obama administration’s announcement that it will no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA in court, wingnut reactions have been humorous [find some fun ones here], but one of the most significant things about it is, and what really makes the law unconstitutional, is that it takes away the states’ powers to define marriage as they see fit. Now, granted, we on the liberal side of the spectrum believe that something as essential as marriage equality should be a federal issue, but as it is, states define marriage and the government recognizes them. So this is one of those rare occasions I’ll link to a piece at Reason because I actually find it interesting:
President Barack Obama has been denounced by Republicans for asserting federal power at the expense of state sovereignty. But last week, he was denounced by Republicans for … not asserting federal power at the expense of state sovereignty.
It happened after the Justice Department announced it would not litigate to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The president thinks one section of the law is unconstitutional—a section that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
[...]
If DOMA were to be struck down, the federal government would no longer insist that some marriages transacted under state laws are valid and some are not. It would tell states: You decide who can get married, and we’ll abide by your judgment.
You want to let gays walk down the aisle? Knock yourself out. You want to deny them the joys of matrimony? Be our guest.
Such deference has always been the norm. There’s a range of matrimonial policies between Hartford and Honolulu. Some states allow 14-year-olds to wed with parental and judicial consent, and others don’t allow marriage until age 17 no matter what. Some states let first cousins get married, and some don’t. Some states used to forbid a black person from marrying a white person.
The federal government has never gotten mixed up in deciding which states are right and which are wrong. It has always had a simple rule: Show us the marriage certificate.
Until same-sex unions came along, that is.
I find this amusing because fundamentalist wingnuts are so particularly fond of drooling over their pocket Constitutions, which they see as more of an accessory than an educational resource, but they truly have no idea what’s in it. Meanwhile, they’ve been allied with other sorts of Republicans, specifically the kind that writes for Reason, and all of the social conservatives’ supposed love and respect for the US Constitution is being exposed as little more than a mantra, intended to make them feel like the Real Murkins.
I disagree with the writer’s later contention that states’ rights should still come into play, giving, for instance, Texas the right to refuse to acknowledge a same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, simply because people are so much more mobile these days, rendering such laws impractical. Under such a scenario, one assumes, a couple who married in New Hampshire, and who was afforded all the rights, state and federal, thereof, and then moved to Texas, would lose all of their rights upon that move? Fortunately [unfortunately, for the Reason writer], this is actually not how Full Faith & Credit works. Under that clause, states recognize each others’ contracts. For instance, the writer brings up the example of differing state laws as to age of marital consent:
There’s a range of matrimonial policies between Hartford and Honolulu. Some states allow 14-year-olds to wed with parental and judicial consent, and others don’t allow marriage until age 17 no matter what. Some states let first cousins get married, and some don’t.
What he does not mention here [because it would win the legal argument for OUR side] is that if a young couple marries in a state with lower consent laws, and then moves to a state where the age requirements are higher, that state still recognizes the original state’s contract.
That is why DOMA flies in the face of Full Faith & Credit on two fronts, and why Barack Obama, as a constitutional law professor, and his Justice Department rightly recognize the law as flatly unconstitutional.
Still, it’s entertaining to watch libertarians and social conservatives fight over this.
Phyllis Schlafly, the woman who has spent her life campaigning against the existence of healthy, happy women, said some Christmassy words about gays the other day:
Many social conservatives, such as Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly of Ladue, refuse to believe that a majority of Americans would support gay marriage.
Obama’s shifting position [on marriage equality], she said, “is the story of politics: An aggressive well-funded pressure group can achieve goals contrary to what the majority of people want. I think same-sex marriage would be a terrible mistake. I don’t think there are any good arguments for it.”
As to the first part, it seems to me like the Religious Right falls more squarely into the category of “aggressive well-funded pressure groups achieving goals contrary, etc.” Meanwhile, the tide is turning toward full acceptance for LGBT people, and has been for years. As to the second part, Phyllis’s contention that she “doesn’t think” there are any good arguments for marriage equality, when squared with her lifelong crusade against women’s rights, suggest to me that perhaps she should be spending more time in her kitchen in Ladue and less time talking about grown-up stuff with strong, liberated men AND women. Don’t like that construction? Can’t have it both ways, Phyl.
Gays, she said, are already free to live together. “Nobody’s stopping them from shacking up,” she said. “The problem is they are trying to make us respect them, and that’s an interference with what we believe.”
Actually, no, you old bat, gays don’t give a damn whether or not you respect us. It’s a question of whether or not you respect the fact that you live in a society which is more secular than you will ever understand, in a nation that, despite your son’s functionally illiterate barking to the contrary, has been officially secular since its founding.
Deal with it.
Also, Schlafly lives in Ladue? If you’re not familiar with St. Louis, Ladue isn’t exactly a “socially conservative” area. I mean, it’s perfect for fundamentalist demagogues who have somehow managed to rack up millions of dollars over the years fighting for a transmogrified bastardization of Jesus and stuff [Ladue is expensive, you see], but it’s also next to Clayton, which is gay gay gay gay gay [and also expensive]. How does old Phyl manage to go out in public, surrounded as she is by reality in all four directions? And really, what would Phyllis Schlafly think of a woman making the kind of money Phyllis Schlafly has made? It’s almost like she’s a hypocritical old crank living out her golden years, watching the world regard her life’s work, laugh, and move on, never to return.
I generally don’t pay too much attention to the interviews Peter LaBarbera posts on his hate site, Americans for Truth.* It’s just one of those things where I see the clip, think to myself, “But there is already good music in my headphones, why ruin the day?”, and find something else of interest to write about.
But Jeremy posted this clip from Peter’s latest interview, with the juvenile, tantrum-throwing Ryan Sorba, and I found it interesting because it really shows two things in clear focus:
1. Social conservatism is fundamentally opposed to real conservatism. Real conservatives are focused on keeping the government out of their business, at whatever cost. This can be good for society, and it can also be very bad for society. In the clip, Ryan Sorba and Peter LaBarbera agree that it is INDEED the government’s business to stop Americans from doing things that they personally don’t like, even if it has no effect on them. Of course, like the disingenuous bigots they are, they equate homosexuality with having sex with animals, but I find it more interesting that they also equate it with choosing to “drop acid” in the privacy of one’s own home. A true conservative with principles would actually support people’s rights to do whatever the hell they want in the privacy of their own homes, as long as it’s not hurting anyone else.
Therefore, social conservatism is fundamentally anti-constitutional. It has been established, completely, that the Constitution guarantees Americans a right to privacy. When Ryan Sorba says that it’s “not in there,” he’s betraying the fact that he is completely unable to read the U.S. Constitution like a grown-up, does not understand what the judicial branch of government does, and furthermore, does not understand the Ninth Amendment. I am very sorry that Ryan Sorba does not understand these things very well, but I am not surprised.
2. The music Peter uses for his interviews is really freaking gay.
That’s gotta twist the knife for social conservatives.
Not only does she express support for equality, but she even acknowledges the actuarial elephant in the room: the major remaining steam in the movement to deny LGBT people equal rights is among the elderly and soon-to-be elderly. Younger voters, on both sides of the aisle, are just fine with equality. In fact, they think it’s dandy.
Earlier this week, extremists within the Republican Party proposed a 10-point checklist of principles that GOP candidates would have to sign if they expect to receive Party support. Like a deranged “Social Issues Santa”, the enforcers of doctrine are descending in their sleighs to slay Republicans who are naughty and not considered nice.
According to their puritanical plan, Republicans would be required to sign 7 of 10 radical resolutions, such as, “opposing Obama’ socialist agenda.” By far the most reckless part of this pledge is the demand that Republicans agree to, “Support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troops surges.” I wonder what such pandering politicians might say to families if these wars took a turn for the worse: “I’m sorry your son died on the battlefield, but I had six campaign pledges and needed a seventh to get a windfall of dough from the Republican Party.”
Ironically, the Republican governors gathered last week and ran away from such extremism. According to The New York Times, “There was little talk of the divisive social and political issues that Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove embraced as a way to attract independent and moderate Democratic voters and build a lasting Republican majority.”
The right wing chest thumping seen in the GOP checklist was echoed in a manifesto signed by 145 religious activists and clerics called the Manhattan Declaration. This document basically said that religious people were above the law and did not have to obey it if they deemed it unholy. Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council, hailed the radical manifesto by calling it a “line in the sand” and vowing that the malcontents “will not be moved.”
Of course, growing up on the lovely beaches of Florida and Hawaii, I’ve learned that there is nothing more temporary than a line in the sand. These arrogant preachers are badly overreaching and will be surprised to find that their sinister sandcastle will succumb to history’ high tide.
The Catholic Church, in particular, is entering politically perilous territory it will soon regret. For most of American history, many voters were concerned that Catholic politicians were beholden to Rome. John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President, won by assuring people that he was independent of the Vatican.
This week, however, Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin scolded another member of the famous clan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), and told him he was unworthy of taking part in communion because of his pro-choice views.
Amazingly, Tobin told NBC News, “To receive a sacrament you have to be in union with the church.” To voters, this can be interpreted as: “Bow to Rome or go home.”
If the Church continues to push these boundaries, it will become toxic. It will force office holders into making a decision between voting with the Vatican, or risking nasty public spats, like the Tobin-Kennedy spectacle. In an era where people are quite fickle with faith, aspiring Catholic politicians may find it easier to avoid this dilemma and switch religions. In the future, the only remaining Catholic politicians may be hardliners, such as former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).
In fact, this backlash is already underway. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine criticized the Archdiocese of Washington this week for threatening to end contracts to feed Washington, DC’ homeless if the city allows gay couples the freedom to marry.
“I’m Catholic and I think it’s wrong,” Kaine said. “If you look at the church through history, the church will stand in tough situations and continue to do good. I think the strategy of threatening to hold back, it just doesn’t seem like the church I’ve come up in.”
Kaine was seconded by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who also is Catholic.
“I don’t understand how they can possibly do this,” O’Malley said. “I have a hard time believing that the nuns and priests who taught me about the Corporal Works of Mercy would agree that this is an appropriate response for the church.”
Inside their adoring mega-churches and towering Cathedrals, these conservative clerics are powerful demigods. Such adoration blinds them to the sobering reality that millions of people view them as power hungry demagogues. The Religious Right is still one of the strongest special interest groups in America, but they keep forgetting that they represent an immoral minority, not the Moral Majority they once fancied themselves to be.
Raging with dictatorial ultimatums and mutinous manifestos, these extremists are too far-gone to realize they have gone too far. As the “Social Issues Santas” shimmy down the chimney to deliver their dogma, it is unclear if they are simply blowing smoke or gift-wrapping future elections for the Democratic Party.
