Speaking of gay marriage debates, I just found this pretty neat story that the Republican Mayor of San Diego reversed himself on gay marriage, likely because of his gay daughter. Would love to have seen what the debate at home was like.
If only Cheney loved his daughter as much.
Ah, moral relativism. Thank God we have some elected officials that make decisions based on principle, logic, and the will of the people, rather than on personal experiences and feelings. If the Supreme Court were made up of 9 San Diego mayors, they would all be basing their rulings on what their kids were going through, or what the culture said was right or wrong at the time. What a scary concept, and what a frightening road it leads us down.
ReplyDeleteAnd I take offense to your Cheney comment. As a parent of three myself, I know you don't do two things--judge how much someone else loves their kid, and measure love by how much a parent does what the kid wants. Normally, Newscat, you are more fair and intelligent than that.
Jim in Cleveland
Sorry Jim, it's nice to believe that our elected officials are some kind of logical robots, inputting data and outputting logical conclusions. And maybe that's how people arrive at decisions sometimes, but people are human beings and are full of experiences, prejudices, and petty greivances.
ReplyDeleteYou know how lobbying actually works? It's about getting close to an elected official on a PERSONAL level. Dealing with them one-on-one so eventually they simply feel "well John is a good guy...he's knows his stuff..."
What I love about the gay-kid-in-the-anti-gay-pol family story is that it makes the abstract personal. What I feel many people (not just people of power) lack is the ability to view the world in other people's shoes. Just because you are a white, male (or white woman) who's got a middle-class to upper-class experience doesn't mean everyone else has experienced life the way you have.
Most non-gay people (or let's say elected officials) simply cannot understand what life as a gay man or woman is like...and how the differences are meaningful.
As for Cheney. I'm sorry there is no insult you can throw at Cheney that he doesn't deserve. Cheney eats babies and feasts on their blood. He poisons wells. He lurks in closets and frightens children.
And he also apparently doesn't love his daughter enough to use his considerable political weight to making her life as a lesbian on par with his non-gay daughter. For all his "influenance" and power that was one fight he didn't want to tackle.
Well.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that every Democratic candidate makes every effort to distance him or herself from lobbyists, but you argue having a gay kid should change everything?
Let's say your son gets busted for drugs, and you know the DA. Do you call the DA to get him off? Does that prove you love your kid? This is not much different. If Cheney believes on principle, as I do, that the government has no right to redefine marriage and sanction what the majority of people do not want sanctioned, then how does circumventing the will of the people in his position of Veep show love? I love my kids and would do anything for them, short of betraying my own principles. If I betray my principles out of personal reasons, I am a hypocrite, plain and simple.
Moral relativism is our culture's greatest danger, and this case typifies it. Your taking some kind of Schadenfreude from Cheney's situation does not become you. Darth Vader he may be, but just because his Leia would rather be with Jan Solo is no reason to giggle.
Jim in Cleveland
Nice posst
ReplyDelete