Hilzoy digs in on the thinking behind this:
"I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a -- albeit strong -- but just it's a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.""
I'm trying to figure out by what logic supporting gay rights might seem worse than supporting abortion rights. Last time I checked, people who were pro-life thought that abortion was murder. People who are gay, by contrast, might be (to conservatives) immoral sodomites, but worse than murderers? How? Saying they're a threat to the family doesn't work: accepting this for the sake of argument (since I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who's opposed to both abortion rights and gay rights), can being gay possibly be a worse threat to the family than allowing parents to legally kill their children?
I mean: how could a disagreement about abortion rights be just a disagreement, while a disagreement about gay rights is somehow orders of magnitude more serious?
Three words--God. Hates. Fags. But apparently not murderers. What the fuck does he even mean "pro-gay rights?" How is that even slur? I think the best part about growing into an old man, for me, is going to be watching all these cowards and demagouges catch the vapors as "gay rights" become mainstreamed. I don't hold anything against conservatives who oppossed "civil rights" when it was convient and then switched when it wasn't. I think some people have had legitimate changes of heart, others were oppurtunists, and then still others--like George Wallace--are just hard to grapple with. But history remembers, you know? And a half-century from now, I have a feeling that a lot of these guys are going to look like cavemen.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I'm pretty sure he wasn't actually saying this, but there is a reading of that which suggests a less awful interpretation, and I like to do that whenever possible. The reading goes: Well, social conservatives care about a bundle of issues, and I could pick a candidate who doesn't agree with them on all of them, but not a sufficient number of them. The candidate could love teh gay, but has to be anti-abortion, or vice versa. Something like that.
I've always thought that the fact that conservatives always talk about abortion and gay rights in the same breath tells you that their guiding principle is control over people's sex lives, not saving babies. After all, say what you will about gay folk, they tend not to have abortions. The only possible connection is sex not connected to reproduction. And given their opposition to gay parenting/adoption, they don't like parenting not connected to sex either, which hardly fits with the supposed baby-loving.
Yeah, its always amazing when people aren't able to take a glance into the future and realize that they are CLEARLY going to be on the wrong side of history with this one.
Shorter social conservatives: "Girls who have sex might be whores, but two dudes touching on each other is fucking disgusting. Yet...so oddly compelling..."
Actually that last part only applies to republican officeholders and oddly well dressed pastors
While I think Joel has the right of this precise quote, It gets at some underlying weirdness--abortion only arises if people are having heterosexual relations, so it's more okay.
I don't hold anything against people conservatives who oppossed "civil rights" when it was convient and then switched when it wasn't.
Is Yglesias guest blogging today?
Let's see that quote again:
Is this on audio- or videotape? 'Cause if I'm Obama, I'm running that as a win-win for driving wingnuts from McCain and Not-insane people to Obama. Good times.
Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights,... [doh!, shouldn't have said that] ... pro, ... [damn, should've gone with gun regulation or the trans fats ban; best to shut up now] ...you know, a number of other issues. [whew, maybe no one will notice]
You forget. Murder(See Iraq for starters) is fine with the GOP, as long as it is not fellow Republicans.
If you want some real fun, try reading his comments on gay adoption:
http://tinyurl.com/5gmxxf
Ed,
Rest assured that we gays will find out about this through the gay press, chatting with friends, etc. And I am almost sure the fundies will find out about how killing babies is not so bad after all through their channels. Good times, indeed.
I'm not certain that the whole anti-gay thing is tapped out.
California's State Constitutional Amendment will be on the ballot and whether it will pass or fail is still up in the air...
May you live long and amply enjoy that prospect, TNC.
McCain "may" pick a pro-choice running mate, but he won't. It's all just designed to confuse the low-information voters about his extreme anti-choice views.
I agree with Joel's interpretation, Bloomberg holds more than a few positions that would get at social conservatives, while perhaps Ridge only has one.
Just like Harry Reid can be pro life and have a leadership position, but if he held too many positions outside the democratic party platform, he wouldn't be in leadership.
On the other point of what will people think in 50 years, I think it will be seen as silly that there was so much focus on sexual preference and things like DOMA and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" will be history.
Cindy McCain has the body of a 12 year old boy. McCain WAS imprisoned for years.
Do the math.
Over the years in the Senate, McCain has had the opportunity to know a lot of openly pro-choice Republicans as individuals, and get comfortable with them.
But who is likely the only Republican that he knows who is openly comfortable with homosexuals? Dick Cheney -- who is enthusiastic about the kind of torture that McCain personally endured. In short, probably not one of his favorite people.
Result, pro-choice Republicans are fine, but pro-gay-rights Republicans are beyond the pale. Just a simple case of going from the specific to the general.
And a half-century from now, I have a feeling that a lot of these guys are going to look like cavemen.
I don't know. It seems to me that they look like cavemen now.
Moe,
No offense, but that ain't right. Let's try to stay in bounds.
T.
The funniest thing is that these guys, like Bill Bennett, already know they lost this fight. Why they are still fighting it just makes you wonder why a bunch of old people are wasting their last years making sure they don't see two happy men exit a wedding chapel.
One possible semi-reasonable reason that support for gay rights is more problematic than support for abortion--it's a much more live issue politically. The laws governing abortion are not likely to change in the next four years; the laws relating to homosexuality are. It's more important for a politician to agree with you on something he can influence a lot than on something that he can influence only a little.
Attempting to imbue McCain’s thinking here with any logic strikes me as simply giving him too much credit.
Rather, I think this supports my hunch that McCain doesn’t really care about issues relevant to so-called “social conservatives”; McCain cares about getting elected. He needs to attract as many voters as he can, which in this election’s political climate, will be nearly impossible solely by beating the drums of war and providing disingenuous rationales for cutting taxes on the wealthy. As such, McCain realizes he needs to draw votes through political panders like offshore drilling and reversing his stance on homophobia. The problem for McCain is that because his stances on these issues arise solely from political expediency, he hasn’t really much contemplated them, and he makes gaffe after gaffe. But as long he keeps pumping out advertisements mocking Obama’s popularity, and the media stays in the tank for him, he’ll have a chance.
Re: Yeah, its always amazing when people aren't able to take a glance into the future and realize that they are CLEARLY going to be on the wrong side of history with this one.
The Bolsheviks said they were the face of the inexorable future in the '20s. The Nazis said it in the '30s. The apostles of American capitalist imperialism said it in the 1950s. And the devotees of cosmopolitan globalization say it today. I despise all of these things so pardon me if I don't take your 'end of history' rhetoric too seriously. History has a way of twisting and turning in ways that no one could ever predict in advance.
Have you ever checked out which are the fastest growing churches today? Hint, it's not the ones which are most willing to dismiss biblical and patristic arguments about homosexuality as so much outmoded bigotry. Even within my own Anglican communion, the parishes which are most demographically vibrant tend to be the more morally conservative ones. While I remain agnostic on the moral liceity of homosexuality, myself, the biblical and patristic witness certainly needs to be taken very seriously, not simply airily dismissed.
the biblical and patristic witness certainly needs to be taken very seriously
In a secular democracy, it absolutely does not. And neither the Bible nor the Patristic writings put forth an "argument" on the topic of homosexuality. They make declarations. Big difference.
But once your Christo-communist utopia comes to fruition, you legislate the bedroom however you like.
"Have you ever checked out which are the fastest growing churches today? Hint, it's not the ones which are most willing to dismiss biblical and patristic arguments about homosexuality as so much outmoded bigotry. "
At one time the Arians were the fastest growing "church". So what's your point?
"the biblical and patristic witness certainly needs to be taken very seriously, not simply airily dismissed. "
Only in the sense as Sun Zi said:
"Know the enemy, know yourself, a hundred battles, no defeat."
Well let's not forget it's not being against murder so much as being against sex... and the gay sex > unmarried hetero intercourse in their world
Ta-Nehisi,
I think that you first have to understand what are the pro-gay-issues.
Realistically, I don't think the discussion right now is about gay acts being ilegal (i.e. sodomy being illegal). That ship sailed sometime ago (I'm not sure if there were comparable laws for lesiban acts, but you get my point).
Right now, the big pro-gay issue is whether gays should get married. Other issues stem from that, such as Federal recognition and the right to adopt.
Assuming most right wing Republicans are very religious Protestants (with some hard-core, perhaps pre-Vatican II Catholics), gay marriage is much worse than merely being gay (as strange as that sounds), because you could repent from being gay, but it's kind of difficult to repent from being gay if you are married to a person of the same sex.
(I still don't see how gay stuff is worse than abortion, but at least I wanted to explain how gay marriage is probably much worse for conservatives than simply being gay).
Forgive me for -- Heaven forfend -- defending McCain (No fan of him am I.), but I think that John Schwenkler's more forgiving interpretation might be the right one:
http://johnschwenkler.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/moral-calculus-101/
"The comparison he was making was one between the pro-choice but anti-gay marriage Tom Ridge and the pro-gay marriage and pro-choice Michael Bloomberg. In other words, the moral was not that supporting gay marriage is worse than supporting abortion rights, but that supporting gay marriage and supporting abortion rights is worse than just supporting the latter."
Worse then cavemen....they will look like Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond.
Even though I will probably vote for McCain I have to admit that he often does make decisions based strictly on political considerations. Does he really feel strongly about gay marriage? I doubt it. Does he even feel strongly about abortion? I doubt it. Being pro-life but making exceptions for rape and incest shows that he hasn't really thought through the issue very deeply. Is it the baby's fault over how he or she was conceived? Apparently it is in McCain's mind. The pro-life with exceptions view is simply illogical. For what it's worth, I'm a member of a very small group, the pro-life (not anti-choice, jonp72), pro-gay marriage, anti-death penalty, legalization of marijuana contingent. I believe there are a total of about ten of us in the world. It's a rational position to hold, but ideology tends to trump everything these days. Most people want to belong to a club, in this case, the Democratic or Republican club, and thinking outside party orthodoxy is nearly verboten. I belong to the Party of One and will continue to do so until the day I die or until a party forms that is quite a bit different from any of the ones we currently have.