Posted on 11/26/2003 10:15:38 AM PST by NYer
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect yesterday's ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The original version of the piece can be found in the December issue of the print magazine.
Since last summer's Supreme Court decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, overturning Texas' anti-sodomy law, evangelicals have grown louder. Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has declared that gay couples have the right to marry, evangelicals are committed to making gay marriage a major issue during the upcoming presidential campaign. Their recent legislative victory over "partial-birth" abortions has emboldened them to seek additional ways to erode Roe v. Wade. They're mounting an all-out offensive for Senate confirmation of people like Alabama's attorney general, William Pryor -- who called Roe "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history" -- to the federal courts. And they're determined to put religion back into the public schools.
The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will depend partly on what happens between now and Election Day in Iraq and to the U.S. economy. But it will also turn on the religious wars -- fueled by evangelical Protestants, the ground troops of the Republican Party. The conventional wisdom is that these issues are sure winners for the right. But Democrats can hold their own in these wars -- if they respond vigorously to the coming assault.
Democrats should call all this for what it is -- a clear and present danger to religious liberty in America. For more than three hundred years, the liberal tradition has sought to free people from the tyranny of religious doctrines that would otherwise be imposed on them. Today's evangelical right detests that tradition and seeks nothing short of a state-sponsored religion. But maintaining the separation of church and state is a necessary precondition of liberty.
Public opinion sides with the Democrats. Even though a slim majority continues to oppose gay marriage, polls show that most Americans believe that homosexual relationships between consenting adults should be legal, that the choice of whether to have an abortion should be up to a woman and her doctor, that stem-cell research should be legal, and that religion should stay out of the public schools. But unless Democrats focus the public's attention on the larger ongoing assault on religious liberty, the evangelical right will whittle away these freedoms.
Gay marriage doesn't have to be a wedge issue for the evangelicals -- not if Democrats can put it where it belongs, as another front in the religious wars. The question of whether gay couples should be treated the same as married people need not and should not involve the religious meaning of "marriage." That's up to particular faiths and congregations to decide. The issue here is whether gays should have the same legal rights as heterosexuals -- survivor's benefits under Social Security, alimony, the distribution of assets when relationships end in divorce and other legal privileges now conferred only on heterosexual couples.
Democrats should make clear that this is an issue about state power, not religion -- and call for gay civil rights. Not "marriage," but "domestic partnership" or "civil union" or whatever words will convey the same legal rights accorded heterosexuals. Most Americans think the law shouldn't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It follows that gays should have the same legal rights.
The evangelicals' victory on "partial-birth" abortion proves only that gruesome pictures and inflamed comments can persuade a majority that a particular procedure is inhumane. It has no bearing on the more basic question of whether the evangelical view about when life begins should be imposed on the rest of America. Democrats should be clear that the issues of abortion and stem-cell research are about religious liberty. Tar the Republicans and the evangelicals with William Pryor and other nominees who want to overrule Roe. Show that the Senate Democrats' filibuster of these nominees is another front in the same religious war. Likewise, Democrats should hold evangelicals accountable for what they're trying to do in our nation's schools -- promoting the teaching of creationism, demanding school prayer, pushing "abstinence until marriage" programs, and opposing sex education. This is all about imposing their religious views on our children.
The religious wars aren't pretty. Religious wars never are. But Democrats should mount a firm and clear counter-assault. In the months leading up to Election Day, when Republicans are screaming about God and accusing the Democrats of siding with sexual deviants and baby killers, Democrats should remind Americans that however important religion is to our spiritual lives, there is no room for liberty in a theocracy.
Thirty years ago, a close friend, educated in Italy, cautioned me that the US was headed down the same path as the 'ancients' of Rome, Greece, et al. He pointed to the feminist movement and predicted that, as history has already shown, when women rise to power, homosexuality soon follows. These two movements, he claimed, would be followed by a weakening of the American society and eventually, its fall. At the time, I laughed myself silly, but I never forgot those words.
Yesterday, in researching those comments, I came across this web site. While the author detests Bill Clinton, he is no fan of the current president either. However, his statements corroborate everything that my friend said! It's definitely worth a cursory read. I have it bookmarked. For example, he writes:
"Starting around the decade of the 60s, there began to be observed a marked change in the character of the White male students enrolled in U.S. colleges. This change was commented upon by some of the more astute professors, and had to do with the tendency of these young men to be too soft, too timid, too lacking in what had always been considered normal male aggressiveness. Now, it must be said, there have always been men who were softer, more effeminate, more "girlish," than average; just as there have always been women with a tendency towards masculinity, but this was not what these professors were observing. What they saw was a relative increase in the number of such men, and this phenomenon has been growing at an ever accelerated pace ever since. "
Now, one may well ask, just what all of this has to do with the feminization of our young White men; the ever-growing number of "sensitized" males and outright homosexuals we see all around us? Well, the answer lies in the replacement of spiritual man's aristocratic values, which foster honor, ambition, discipline, and self-control, with economic man's democratic and feminine values, which foster safety, comfort, security and the home. In a democratic society the role of the government shifts from that of a father, who maintains order but allows for the incentive and freedom necessary for success, to that of a mother whose function is to provide security and comfort to all of her children; to make sure that their demands are satisfied.
As the role of the government changes, individual behavior follows suit. Children begin to be raised differently, and a disciplined environment gives way to a permissive one. Such things as spanking or disciplining a child become subject to censure, and the result is a failure on the part of the child to learn from his mistakes, to mature and grow up. This move from a masculine idealism to a feminine materialism leads inevitably to hedonism and self-absorbed egoism. The young -- both male and female -- put self-gratification as their most important goal in life, and it is this urge to satisfy the senses that economic man exploits and encourages. In the case of the male, it is not the acquisition of honor, glory or esteem that is encouraged; what is touted as most important is indulging in whatever happens to satisfy one physically and emotionally: if it feels good, do it; if it's something that discomforts you, avoid it. Honor, glory, and self-control are not encouraged by economic man because there is no money to be made from such things in his world, and money, as a means to power, is what counts for him."
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