“Values” vs. Science is part two in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.†Read part one, The Conservative Mind, then come back tomorrow for part three, Gays And Parenting.
Part Two: “Values” vs. Science. Actual Science.
America’s Right Wing has steeped itself in a vessel of religion, history, and its own bigotry. It refuses to look at any new information or science, and certainly none that would shed a different light than what it needs Americans to believe to further its stranglehold on the intangibility of “morality” — and against America’s LGBT community.
Conservatives are not fond of things like science. Or, “peer-reviewed studies.” Why use knowledge and science when we have our “moral values” and our “beliefs?” (Not to mention that their entire business model is dependent upon Americans believing that America’s Right Wing holds the key to their salvation.)
For proof, all you need to do is look at America’s Right Wing’s fierce resistance to the science of climate change (which they call “Climategate,”) or their current attack on the positive economics of deficit spending, or even the ludicrous theme espoused by the GOP leadership recently, that government regulation is to blame for the BP oil spill.)
But back to marriage equality. Let’s start with David Blankenhorn, founder and president of the Institute for American Values, and the only witness against marriage equality in the Prop 8 trial that ended earlier this month. Blankenhorn essentially “flip-flopped” by the end of the trial. In fact, at the end of the trial, Ted Olsen, the pro-marriage equality lead counsel, used Blankenhorn’s own quote at the end of his closing argument, stating, “we will be more American [the day we permit gay marriage.]”
To be fair, Blankenhorn has been a bit maligned, first by the Left, and now by both sides of the marriage equality argument. While he does not support same-sex marriage, he does support same-sex relationships. In an odd way. Last year, he, along with Jonathan Rauch, an esteemed author and same-sex marriage supporter, wrote a misguided op-ed for the New York Times, titled, “A Reconciliation On Gay Marriage.” It was not a “reconciliation.” It was a call to encode second-class citizenship upon same-sex couples. In, “An Embarrassing Reconciliation On Gay Marriage,” I called their ideas “sectarian mischief,” ensconced in “separate but equal†arguments, and all “in service to the church.”
Which is how America’s Right Wing likes to maintain their segregation of America’s LGBT community.
Blankenhorn recently wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times (which refused it,) challenging “Weddings For Everybody,” a piece op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd had written. In his letter, Blankenhorn writes, “Maureen Down incorrectly reports that, in the California Prop 8 trial on gay marriage, I stated on the witness stand that ‘adoptive parents are as good as natural parents.’ I respect adoptive parents and value adoption as an institution, but numerous studies suggests [sic] that outcomes for adopted children often are not ‘as good as’ outcomes for children raised by natural parents.”
Hogwash. Times two.
First, the “numerous studies suggests” part. Blankenhorn doesn’t quote which studies, but I can all but guarantee the name Paul Cameron, or the Family Research Institute, have some involvement with them. (Cameron founded FRI and was discredited and expelled from the American Psychological Association.)
More importantly, two long-term studies recently published found just the opposite. In fact, one of them, a twenty-five year-long and vigorously peer-reviewed study published in the journal Pediatrics, found that adopted children raised by lesbian parents are better-adjusted and do better in school than their opposite-parented peers.
But relying on science won’t help conservatives make their case, so they have to make up “science,” or rely on outdated concepts, to try to give their fears credibility. Or, they have to turn to decades, or centuries-old “research” to try to prove their bigotry.
A new breed of conservative politicians, those of the “Tea Party,” have brought a special mix of virulent anti-science, “moral values,” and homophobia to the fore. Take Sharon Angle, now running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.
Talking Points Memo, run by the award-winning journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, just last week posted “Sharron Angle’s Fringe Third Party Sponsored Virulently Anti-Gay Flier In ’90s,” writing,
The ad insert, which approvingly cites an 1814 legal treatise titled “Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation,” is a digest of articles that refer to LGBT people alternately as “homosexuals,” “sodomites,” and “brazen perverts.” The insert includes virtually every homophobic myth ever conceived.
Sample headlines include: “Homosexual Curriculum In The First Grade” … “Flawed Science Nurtures Genetic Origin For Homosexuality” … “No Constitutional Right To Be A Sodomite.” Here’s a passage from an item headlined “True Homosexual Character Revealed”:
Homosexuals argue that they are a peaceful and gay people. Yet … Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Report writes “the top six U.S. male killers were all homosexuals.”
(By the way, Cameron — remember Cameron from the Family Research Institute? — is flat-out wrong by saying “the top six U.S. male killers were all homosexuals.”)
Unsurprisingly, not much has changed with America’s Right Wing’s hatred and fear of America’s LGBT community. They are working hard to not only maintain our second-class citizen status, but are trying to use corrupt “science,” along with religion, to further erode our status.
The once-and-future GOP presidential candidate and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is never too far away from the anti-gay culture war. Just days ago, Huckabee shared this bit of personal ignorant homophobia:
“I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes. Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.â€
That alone should be worth a fair amount of cash for his Huck PAC.
America’s Right Wing believes by abusing science and morality to demean and disenfranchise America’s LGBT community, they will have won the culture wars. They believe that America’s gay and lesbian citizens should remain second-class citizens, with little to no rights — certainly not the right to serve in the military, be safe from being fired for being gay, marry, or parent children.
And they couldn’t be more wrong.
“Values” vs. Science is part two in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.†Read part one, The Conservative Mind, then come back tomorrow for part three, Gays And Parenting.
(image: kevindooley)