Saturday, December 13, 2008

Where there's a right there's a left

It's amazing that I have put myself through reading so many blog posts and like on the whole Prop 8 issue. It's even more amazing how disappointingly polarizing and absolutist most of the articles and comments really are.

One thing that strikes me throughout is how much like George W. Bush some of the gay activists really are in their absolutism. In the sad case of Margie Christoffersen, for instance, most of the rhetoric from the Left focuses on how she really hates gays, in spite of significant evidence to the contrary, and deserves to suffer for the rest of her life because of a $100 donation to the Yes on 8 campaign. How is this any different from Bush's "you're either with us or against us" and "Axis of Evil" absolutism?

The gay marriage debate should have been a great opportunity for an intelligent discussion about the differences between constitutional rights and other kinds of rights, the meaning of marriage in society, and the respective roles of the judiciary and voter initiative processes. I blame both campaigns for abandoning civility and ignoring these core issues in the quest for the least common denominator. But I am especially disappointed in the activists who have nothing more intelligent to offer than advocating the personal destruction of people who simply disagree with them on one nuance of this particularly thorny issue. These people occupy the same mindspace for me as George W. Bush - blabbering fools who need to take a basic civics class before being allowed anywhere near the nuclear launch codes.

1 comment:

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