Hoping to see purple states some day.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/17/schmidt.log.cabin/index.html#cnnSTCText?iref=werecommend McCain's campaign manager offers support for gay marriage and suggests other Republicans move to do the same.
I think that with time that will be a really good move. I know as a liberal that social conservatism bothers me far more than fiscal conservatism or wishing to have a smaller government. The latter two things I can usually see where people are coming from. You want privacy and autonomy in your own life, and accountability from the government. I'm for that too, we just have different ideas of what that means, and that's fine. I'm not going to be mortally offended that someone wants to pay less taxes in exchange for less government services.
Social conservatism taken to its extreme, where poor people are all lazy, gays are immoral, and fetuses are more important than women, is what terrifies/enrages me here on the left. Dialed back to wishing the government to not focus on welfare but on jobs, or calling for personal responsibility in *requesting* gays get married if they're up for it, now that, that I can understand. Unfortunately I don't see the Republican party calling for extensive sex education and free access to birth control, hormonal or otherwise, which is *really* what would reduce abortions, but maybe someday. Maybe someday the party as a whole will move from legislation allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill hormonal birth control, to encouraging programs and schools to educate in order to reduce unprotected sex. It'd cut back on abortions and cut back on costs for treating STDs, both of which I think the Republican party would love to see happen.
At any rate -- I'm heartened to see this Republican recommending the party support gay marriage. It won't be an overnight change, it will take time. Not every liberal supports gay marriage, even. But I think if people really step back and remember that this is about LAWS, *not* RELIGION, that eventually the majority will come to see that encouraging stability, commitment, and personal accountability in a greater population of people will only help the rest of the society in general. (Whether they call all of them marriages or all of them civil unions, can be determined later.) Additionally, if both sides -- not just Republicans -- try and move to a calmer outlook on things and present things more logically like this guy did, then I think the gulf between right and left will narrow considerably. Like I said, for me it's the social conservatism I violently disagree with and have trouble even comprehending -- but the conservatism directed towards fiscal measures and reduced government involvement, that I can easily understand even if I don't agree. I think a large number of liberals feel the same way and were the vastly different social outlooks brought a little closer, then discourse might be far more productive, and both sides might have a better understanding of the other.
I think that with time that will be a really good move. I know as a liberal that social conservatism bothers me far more than fiscal conservatism or wishing to have a smaller government. The latter two things I can usually see where people are coming from. You want privacy and autonomy in your own life, and accountability from the government. I'm for that too, we just have different ideas of what that means, and that's fine. I'm not going to be mortally offended that someone wants to pay less taxes in exchange for less government services.
Social conservatism taken to its extreme, where poor people are all lazy, gays are immoral, and fetuses are more important than women, is what terrifies/enrages me here on the left. Dialed back to wishing the government to not focus on welfare but on jobs, or calling for personal responsibility in *requesting* gays get married if they're up for it, now that, that I can understand. Unfortunately I don't see the Republican party calling for extensive sex education and free access to birth control, hormonal or otherwise, which is *really* what would reduce abortions, but maybe someday. Maybe someday the party as a whole will move from legislation allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill hormonal birth control, to encouraging programs and schools to educate in order to reduce unprotected sex. It'd cut back on abortions and cut back on costs for treating STDs, both of which I think the Republican party would love to see happen.
At any rate -- I'm heartened to see this Republican recommending the party support gay marriage. It won't be an overnight change, it will take time. Not every liberal supports gay marriage, even. But I think if people really step back and remember that this is about LAWS, *not* RELIGION, that eventually the majority will come to see that encouraging stability, commitment, and personal accountability in a greater population of people will only help the rest of the society in general. (Whether they call all of them marriages or all of them civil unions, can be determined later.) Additionally, if both sides -- not just Republicans -- try and move to a calmer outlook on things and present things more logically like this guy did, then I think the gulf between right and left will narrow considerably. Like I said, for me it's the social conservatism I violently disagree with and have trouble even comprehending -- but the conservatism directed towards fiscal measures and reduced government involvement, that I can easily understand even if I don't agree. I think a large number of liberals feel the same way and were the vastly different social outlooks brought a little closer, then discourse might be far more productive, and both sides might have a better understanding of the other.