I’ve been working to try to understand the recent arguments America’s Right Wing has been trying to make against marriage equality. If you have been following the reports from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial that will determine the constitutionality of Proposition 8, or have read, “Gay People Cannot Be Allowed To Marry Because Straight People Cannot Be Trusted?,” my piece detailing the, dare I say, “ridiculous” arguments America’s Right Wing is using against same-sex marriage, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But even well before Prop 8, America’s conservatives have been actively involved in maintaining second-class citizenship for gay and lesbian Americans.
Whether you have or you haven’t been following along, let me share with you (even more of) the reasons why I say America’s Right Wing’s anti-marriage equality arguments are, indeed, ridiculous.
“The Conservative Mind” is part one in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.” Come back tomorrow for part two, “Values” vs. Science.
Part One: Understanding The Conservative Mind
First, to understand the thinking of America’s Right Wing on issues like marriage equality, you have to realize their world view is comprised of two essential — albeit fallacious — concepts. First, those on the Right consider the world to be a “zero-sum game.” That is, if you win, I must lose. If you gain a dollar, I must lose a dollar. The concept of “win-win” is not possible to them.
To illustrate this, look at the Right Wing’s argument against, say, immigration. They fear immigrants and “illegals” because they think these people are taking jobs away from Americans. Well, they are not. And, in fact, often they are paying into a social security system that will never pay them back.
Or, “gay marriage” itself. (I like to put it in quotes now, just as the the Right Wing bigots do, but because to me, marriage is marriage. As Liz Feldman says, we don’t call it “gay lunch,” do we?) Conservatives somehow think “gay marriage” will devalue their own marriages. As if there were a limited number of marriage licenses, totaling a certain value, and the more licenses issued, the less valuable each one actually were.
Second, America’s Right Wing is emotionally allergic to change. Everything they fight against is “something new.” And both these concepts force them, biologically, to fear and to fight.
Conservatives cannot stand that America has its first black president. They cannot stand the idea that two men, or two women, could love each other and want to be married, or (horrors!) raise children. America’s Right Wing just cannot accept that people change, and society advances.
Look to their rallying cry: “We must take back our country!” In fact, the entire “Tea Party” (the militant, and ignorant, arm of the Republican Party) is a desperate attempt to, as they love to say “take America back” – but all the way to 1776. They love to quote (and mis-quote) the Founding Fathers. Like this “gem,” floating around the conservative threads on Twitter, a popular social networking site: “The beauty of the 2nd amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it,” and attributed to Thomas Jefferson. In fact, Jefferson never said it.
Just last week the Republican Party of Texas adopted a platform that brings back sodomy laws — which the Supreme Court invalidated in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas. (Montana’s GOP just joined them.) To the Right’s way of thinking, anything that happened in the 20th Century must be bad, and in the 21st century, worse.
For conservatives, the choice is always this OR that.
Conservatives seem to always see decisions as, “I can have the ice cream OR I can have the apple pie.” Rarely do they think, “I can have the ice cream AND the apple pie.” Trust me, each, alone, is good, but together, they are great! Conservatives never seem to understand the idea that one plus one can equal three.
America’s Right Wing never seems to understand the concept of added value. Or, science.
Come back tomorrow for part two, “Values” vs. Science.
(image: kevindooley)