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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
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GAY MARRIAGE, ABORTION, CIVIL RIGHTS AND WHY EVERYONE IS A HYPOCRITE BUT ME
Since the issues of gay marriage and abortion rights are the major topics of discussion following the presidential election, I'd like to point out why everyone except me is either lying or stupid regarding "states rights."
A long, long time ago, well, 1954 to be precise, the United States Supreme Court decided that the individual states were lousy at protecting the civil rights of its people. This flew in the face of 180 years of tradition and threw the Democrats into a huge tizzy. The Civil Rights in question were those of black people and the problem was that they didn't have any.
Some backround for my younger readers might be necessary here.
For all the hue and cry over stuff like Willie Horton ads, the Republican Party was originally the party of emancipating blacks and granting them some (if not completely equal) rights. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, was the party of slavery. All of the Southern states were firmly Democratic. Following Reconstruction, the Democrats were re-elected to all statewide offices throughout the former Confederacy and through "Jim Crow" laws, blacks lost virtually everythng they had gained through the Emancipation Delaration and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. This made Democrats rather happy and they looked to keep it this way.
The Southern Democrats were so adamant about the subjugation of their black citizens that they repeatedly defied presidents of their own party (Roosevelt and Truman), refusing to pass anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. Let me put this in simpler English for you, the Democratic Party had no interest in passing a federal law against hanging black people from trees. They felt that the states should be allowed to prosecute lynchings on their own. Or not. More often, not prevailed.
Brown v. Board of Education(1954) changed all of that. What Brown essentially said was, that since the individual states were so uninterested in protecting the Constituational guarantees of its citizens, the federal courts would do it for them. Democrats howled vigourously against Brown and continued to do so until the Republican Party gained a solid dominance of the South.
Then came Roe v. Wade (1973). The Roe decision never referred to abortion as "delish" or anything like that. It merely stated that the Texas law in question restricting first-term abortions violated the privacy guarantee laid out in Griswold v. Conneticutt (1965). Accordingly, jurisdiction of those abortions was removed from the states. Democrats, bouyed as they then were by the women's vote, couldn't have been more pleased.
Desegration, abortion, school prayer, gun rights, you can run down the list and find that, since about 1968, the Democratic Party has been firmly against states rights. The same is true of the Republicans too, don't get me wrong. They just swing the other way. Neither party is truly the party of state's rights.....except on one issue.
Gay marriage. BOTH parties officially want to leave this to the states. The very states that can't be expected to protect the rights of black people, abortionists or gun owners are supposed to protect the rights of the most vulnerable minority amoung us.
The arguments against gay marriage are patently ridiculous. The Republican argument seems to be that they are fighting for stable families, yet are against homosexual adoption and monogamy. This implies that they are for the reckless gay lifestyle of the San Fransisco bath houses and that Al Pacino movie back in the '70's that made HIV so popular. No one seemed to tell them that this issue is an either/or proposition. You're either for monogamy or you're not. I'm sure that all three of Newt Gingrich's wives agree about this. Or both of John Kerry's.
This position is particularly disappointing coming from the Democrats. They have have been steadfastly anti-states rights for decades. They have portrayed themselves as "defenders of the little guy" for even longer. What's worse is that they've spent much of the last decade enveloping themselves in the shroud of Matthew Shepherd and crying that, under the Republicans, homosexuals would be murdered for no reason at all. Gays voted upwards of 76% for John Kerry and all they got in return was a meandering position that, in practical terms, differed not at all from George Bush's.
The Democrats, the champions of the oppressed, seem only to be interested in oppression if it comes in substantial numbers. Blacks equal 13% of the popoulation, Hispanics equal 15%, Women are 52%. Gay Americans are probably only about 6% (unless you count Governor McGreevy and then they're 10%.) Democrats literally stabbed their gay constituiency in the back in the hope of not alienating black or Hispanic voters....who Bush gained with anyway. It is therefore conclusively proven that the Democrats are squarely in the corner of the little guy....so long as he's big enough to matter.
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