Haters, Dividers, Republicans

The politics of bigotry is alive and well among intolerant conservatives. Topping a recent Worst President Ever poll, George Bush threw his Gay Marriage Amendment life-preserver into the political water today to try to save his sinking party, giving an angry and divisive speech supporting the Amendment. By stoking hatred and division in an election cycle, Republican spinmeisters hope to stave off in November a mass defection of voters horrified by the long list of failures and scandals produced by Bush and his inept cronies.

But confronted with this filthy strategy, White House Spokesman Tony Snow lied through his newly whitened teeth, saying that the Amendment timing had nothing to do with politics. He obviously thinks his audience is retarded.

In today's speech, Bush repeatedly used the tired Republican spook phrase “activist judges”, blaming them for overturning state laws prohibiting gay marriage (that, in fact, go clearly against the spirit of the constitution and our nation’s history of civil liberty). There was nothing arbitrary about the judges actions, as Bush cynically suggested.

And Bush kept angrily insisting that marriage is the most “enduring and important human institution.” If so, then why not an amendment to prevent divorce? Why not attack people who bear children out of wedlock? Because this Amendment isn’t about marriage. It’s about people’s fear and hatred of gays. Period.

Slavery was a fundamental and enduring part of human life for centuries, until we decided it was unjust and violated the spirit of our nation's founding documents. But that truth is irrelevant if you believe the lie that sexual orientation is a matter of choice.

The fact is, marriage has been redefined constantly. For the majority of the last two thousand years, marriages in the West were arranged, not the product of romantic love. For centuries, and within the last hundred years, middle-aged men were often encouraged to marry fourteen-year-old (or younger) girls. Brides could be traded by families like chattel. In most of the rest of the world today, marriages are still arranged. And many parts of the world still encourage plural marriage. There is nothing unchanging about it. To suggest so is a distorting, manipulative lie that plays to our most base fears and prejudices--fear of the unknown, of the other, of change.

When I listen to Bush twist and turn his way through this issue, here’s what I hear:

Humans should be treated with respect and reverence. Our humanity is the most fundamental aspect of our lives. And while I harbor no ill will towards gays, they don’t deserve to be considered human. For two thousand years, humanity has been doing just fine, but now gays want to tear down the definition of what is means to be human. In order to protect the health of humanity, we have to protect what it means to be human. Despite the fact that study after study show that gays are predominantly born gay, they should decide to ignore their genes and fundamental urges and stop being gay. In which case, they would become human. But activist judges, using their demonic “logic” and “reason” and “sense of justice,” want to pretend that gays are human, and we must stop them. Sure, gays can continue to live among us without being killed…for the most part. But we, the people, need to stop evil judges from undermining the structure of humanity, because our superstitions require us to. I know, with all humility, that God really wants us to exclude gays from humanity. He made them gay as a way to perfect our intolerance and hatred. And we must pass this amendment to prove that we are worthy. Our society and political offices depend on it.

What a sad, narrow, divisive, hate-filled position.

LATE ADDITION:

MSNBC Host Tucker Carlson tonight pleaded for Democrats and Republicans to come together and discuss banning gay marriage. "Isn't it time for an open discussion?" he asked, his anger barely masked by a veneer of phony earnestness. But when his gay guest countered that we should instead have a discussion about divorce, since Republican Senator George Allen--a big opponent of gay marriage--is a divorcee, Tucker blew his lid, enraged that the guest would be so cruel to Allen.

Tucker was angry because his guest had so clearly exposed the ridiculous hypocrisy of Allen and Tucker's conservative gay-baiting. And Tucker's wide-eyed denial that the Marrige Amendment is pure politics smells of posturing and intellectual dishonesty. It has never escaped my attention that Tucker Carlson is the picture of what conservatives claim to loathe--an elite, bow-tie-wearing dandy, straight from prep school/Ivy League central casting. That an old woman could probably beat him at arm-wrestling makes taking "tough" stands all the more imperative for Tucker, whose childhood must have been filled with teasing and slurs. He should stop the phony tough-guy pose, the manufactured outrage and the fiction of objectivity and start learning how to be honest to his viewers.