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July 16, 2004
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan's been devoting a lot of ink to the gay problem that his party has. He compares current efforts to use gay marriage as a wedge issue with previous efforts, saying "now gays are the new blacks." Well, not exactly, and this is one of the reasons I don't think it will be as effective.
One of the keys to having a wedge issue work is that it drives your opponents supporters to you and also helps you consolidate your own base. In the old days in a state like Georgia you have basically two sets of white voters, those that live in homogenous areas and those that live in diverse ones. They key to a racial appeal working is to fire up those whites who live around blacks while not alienating those who don't.
And so you have code words and coded appeals, "local control" or even the word "Atlanta" or more recently being discussed at the "way" the flag was changed. In all of these examples, your suburban or intown Republican who is not necessarily very culturally conservative and could care less about the flag either shrugs off the rhetoric as generally not a bad idea (after all, who isn't in favor of local control?) or agrees with the text (that flag change was kind of pushy) while totally missing the subtext (blacks forced them to do it!).
A good advantage to this type of appeal is that the suburban white soccer mom isn't really in tune to these covert racist appeals because being white, she doesn't really have any black family members that will be upset about it.
Big difference with the whole gay marriage thing. I'm not suggesting that every Republican voter has a gay family member, but I'm willing to wager that the percentage of Republican leaning voters who have a gay family member is higher than those who have a black family member. And Republicans don't just want to use them in some direct mail to gin up votes -- they actually want to vote to restrict their constitutional rights!
Santorum and Cornyn and Bush think they are beating up on some bogeyman just like politicians attack deadbat dads or drunk drivers. But I think that they'll increasingly find that Americans look at gays not as deadbat dads, but as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and one day husbands and wives. And Santorum, Cornyn, Bush et al? Dinosaurs.
Posted by Chris at July 16, 2004 06:29 PM
Comments
You really ought to marshall your thoughts and think some of the stuff that you probably think of as concepts through with someone who has some life experience. Having an active blogspot involves a responsibility to say cogent ,meaningful things...not just let your mind wander. Maybe you should just stop blogging...what with all the really bright minds out there saying good relevant stuff? You seem incredibly dumb.
Have a nice life.
Posted by: Chuck B at July 17, 2004 02:17 AM
Actually, I think this was an excellent post. As are all the posts I read here. Keep up the good work Chris.
And Chuck, if you dont like it, take your sorry ass to someone else's blog.
Posted by: Josh at July 17, 2004 07:53 AM
Chuck, you and your ilk always seem to resort to the same ad hominem attacks whenever anyone says something you do not like. You do not provide any insight or thoughts on what Chris had to say, but instead attacked him with the only ammunition you have, name-calling. There are myriad viewpoints that you could have expressed, but I doubt you have any. Also, I would be especially careful of calling someone “incredibly dumb” when you do not even know the correct way to spell ‘marshal.’
Posted by: Josh - a different one at July 17, 2004 01:44 PM
Chris, you're a glib and lazy writer and
a sloppy thinker. After all, Andrew Sullivan hasn't been "devoting a lot of ink
to the gay problem" at all. Sullivan uses a
computer. There's no ink. (Trust me on this one.) Secondly, you have to do better than glibly call certain Republican senators "dinosaurs." That's not an argument. That's the equivalent
of a 6-year-old saying, "You're stupid."
You called Zell Miller a "closet Republican" in
your previous post on 7/15. Chris. . .are you a "closet" anything?
Posted by: phillydog at July 17, 2004 04:27 PM
Chris, you're a glib and lazy writer and
a sloppy thinker. After all, Andrew Sullivan hasn't been "devoting a lot of ink to the gay problem" at all. Sullivan uses a computer. There's no ink. (Trust me on this one.)
Secondly, you have to do better than glibly call certain Republican senators "dinosaurs." That's not an argument. That's the equivalent of a 6-year-old saying, "You're stupid."
You called Zell Miller a "closet Republican" in
your previous post on 7/15. Chris. . .are you a "closet" anything?
Posted by: phillydog at July 17, 2004 04:40 PM
and we're back. How about keeping on subject? Too many people taking un-principled journalist lessons from the Fox News Network. anyway, Chris, thanks for the post and always keeping the topic of-interest. I enjoy Sullivan's writing b/c he's someone from the other side politically that makes sense. On a personal note, I agree that Falwell, Dobson, Bush, Robertson, Murdoch and others have to have a "boogeyman" to chase since fear and ignorance are their primary weapons and their way to maintain control rather than positive thinking and fact-based reporting.
Posted by: Tim at July 19, 2004 09:23 AM
Interesting argument... But it kind of misses the whole "in the closet" thing. My grandparents are rock-ribbed anti-gay, despite their gay son dying of AIDS. Basically, they just hide from reality - saying it was 'cancer' - to keep their moral compass unwaivering. My Canadian experience is that support for equal marriage is a function of age, and it follows that middle-age and younger centre-right voters would sympathize with gay relatives because they are more likely to be aware that those relatives are gay. The political equation seems to be based around who is sufficiently tolerant to accept a gay relative. But we just had two elections where the right-wing parties ran on dog-whistle anti-gay issues and the Liberals still won.
Posted by: Andrew at July 20, 2004 06:13 PM
Chris,
You are right on the spot about gays and Republicans. A fundamental Republican value is decency. Decency demands that you treat everyone with deep respect even, or perhaps especially, those who are profoundly different from you. Decent Republicans find bigotry towards their gay relatives and friends revolting.
Ronald Reagan was a great and decent man. I believe that George Bush is a decent man who I hope will also prove to be a great man. Republicans will continue to hold their party to a hide standard of decency in regard to the treatment of gay Americans.
Posted by: SF South Park Republican at July 25, 2004 09:01 PM
The liberally biased conservative stance is to believe that gay marriage really is ok and people will come to accept it. That it really is a wedge issue as CNN, NYT, WashPost, Slate, NPR, and just about every mainstream blog accept as fact.
But the real fact is straightforward and simple.
Gay anything is a fad that ebbs and flows. Gays have not been a sizable portion of the populace that has always been held back. Rather, they have grown in recent years similar to their rise during the Roman Empire. Their movement has from its initial days been very attuned to using the media to drum up support (I sat in the back of the room during a presentation by two openly gay big-time congressional staffers as they described how to work the media).
At the end of the day, males don't go with males. And that isn't going to change.
Bush isn't riling up the base. He's taking a stand similar to the stand he took on terrorism. Terrorism is unequivocally wrong. And, unequivocally, two guys aren't ever going to have a baby.
P.S. I don't go to church every weekend and I'm not a right wing Christian Coalition conservative. I don't hate gay people. I have historically mixed all my votes between all and any party. But I am 100% behind President Bush. Period. And I am turning into a not-ashamed-to-talk-about-it Republican.
Posted by: HowAboutThis at July 25, 2004 10:29 PM
SF South Park Republican. I agree with you 100%.
This is not about hatred. And never will be.
Posted by: HowAboutThis at July 25, 2004 10:32 PM
Chris, I just spent a month in Georgia. The Dems are all running against gay marriage. Why are you pretending this is a partisan issue when you must know it's a regional one. Republicans in my hometown of NYC are all for gay marriage.
Posted by: Karol at July 28, 2004 05:25 PM
Chris, I just spent a month in Georgia. The Dems are all running against gay marriage. Why are you pretending this is a partisan issue when you must know it's a regional one. Republicans in my hometown of NYC are all for gay marriage.
Posted by: Karol at July 28, 2004 05:26 PM
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