Liberals Will Ban Bibles

[chipotle]

As suggested earlier, I'm going to get political here occasionally rather than moving things to a separate blog, but to spare those who might find this a little too acid,

From the AP wires (via Yahoo):

Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November. The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

I have more than one friend who supports Bush and who's also gay or bisexual. (Many of them are also atheists or agnostics.)

And, you know, I'm not going to tell them they shouldn't. They're convinced Kerry would be terrible for national security, or that he'd take away their guns, or that he'd radically balloon the nanny welfare state or whatever. Or they've just accepted the Republican talking points that Kerry's a flip-flopper with no discernable record in the Senate. I disagree with each of those points, but I doubt I'm going to be able to convince those who are dead set against Kerry, just like I doubt I could be convinced at this point that Bush's policies, both foreign and domestic, have been anything but disasters (or "catastrophic successes," if you prefer).

But I am going to say to those people, those self-identified "conservative queers" or the Republican atheists: don't believe for a second that "your" party has the respect for you that you give it. No matter how closer you may think you are to the Republicans than the Democrats on issues of policy, your value is as a scarecrow. You will cast your vote for Bush at the same time Bush's campaign will be using you as an example of everything that's wrong in American society. To you, they may be the party of fiscal responsibility, military strength and upholding the Second Amendment. To them, you're a godless queer. Period.

Yeah, I know it's the other things that attract you to the Republicans. I'm just saying I can't shake the similarity between that idea and "my husband doesn't hit me often, and he's really a fine guy most of the rest of the time."

Comments

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

This is also my stance, pretty much. For political reasons I don't see it happening anytime soon, but historically marriage was religious long before it was state-sanctioned -- and I haven't heard any good argument for it being state-sanctioned, really.

My irritation level over the ads in this case is an irritation with it being fear-mongering -- they're not just drawing a socially conservative line in the sand, they're turning those they disagree with into bogeymen. I expect this to happen between some parties in every election, but I don't expect the official party committees to engage in it.

[musewoozle.livejournal.com]

I'll venture a shot at why marriage should be managed by the State.

I think the idea will be similar to why privacy is not part of the Constitution. In particular, if one allows privacy, then it also entails that one may use privacy to commit acts which are contrary to freedom (an example would be murdering someone in the privacy of your home).

I think that a similar argument should hold true for marriage. Marriage should be managed by the State so that the rights of the people involved are not open to compromise and unfair treatment.

In other words, I could see the possibility that a religious instution could have marriage laws which over-rule existing civil rights.

For example, it might be possible to say what when one is married, the wife loses equal rights, such as the right to vote.

-- Jacob