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another 'win' for social
conservatives
psychiatrist friend about his delusional brother who thinks
himself a chicken.
“Bring him in and I’ll cure him,” says the psychiatrist.
“Oh, no,” replies the horrified man. “I need the eggs.”
Republican social conservatives must be able to sympathize.
Compared to how their champions on Capitol Hill spent this
week shepherding the doomed anti-gay marriage amendment
through the inevitable congressional gauntlet, coaxing a crazy
man to lay eggs would seem a stunningly fruitful activity.
Not to mention one harboring a greater chance of success.
Some on the far right fringes may have been a bit disconnected
lately from the firmament of political realism but no one was so
far in orbit as to believe that this week’s proposed amendment
to ban gay unions actually had the remotest chance of
garnering the two-thirds Senate vote necessary to … well …
necessary to probably fail in the House, which, I understand, is
planning a similar exercise in futility next month. The best
supporters of the measure could hope for was a simple majority
- and in the end they didn’t even get that. So passage wasn’t
the point.
Not that the point was all that clear anyway. From the level of
heated rhetoric many conservatives employ on this issue you’d
swear wild gangs of nuptial-crazed homosexuals were roaming
the streets busting down church doors, looting bridal stores and
forcing reception caterers to make gallons of Chicken Florentine
at gunpoint. But such isn’t reality. The most powerful argument
for allowing gays to wed continues to be the most obvious. It’s
entirely innocuous and affects no one but the two people
involved. Unlike subjects such as economics or taxes -
pocketbook issues which elicit easily-understandable emotions
like greed and avarice - the unaccountably high feelings raised
by gay marriage have never been fully comprehended by
liberals who simply don’t know what the big deal is about two
adults who just want to get themselves hitched. So personal
interest wasn’t the point.
Pragmatism was another question. Emerging from hiding to give
his weekly radio address, President Bush himself admitted that
45 of 50 states have already banned same sex marriage
anyway. In any event, clergy that marry gay couples aren’t
going to stop simply because the state doesn’t recognize the
institution, nor is anyone likely to reorient their bedroom tastes
because Congress tells them they ought to. So practicality
wasn't the point.
So what was this little chunk of political theater about? What was
so important that the world’s most august legislative assemblage
felt the need to spend days debating an amendment everyone
knew would fail and whose purpose was to prohibit an activity
that’s already illegal in order to protect marriage from people
who want to get married. Hmmm… when things stop making
sense, start smelling around for the rank odor of politics. You’ll
usually find it.
Ah, there it is…
“The federal marriage amendment debate simply is an
opportunity for us to affirm our support for marriage,” said Sen.
John Thune (R-SD). “It is an important debate to have in this
country.”
Indeed. And it seems to be a very, very important debate to
have in even-numbered years. To put it mildly, Thune’s
colleagues are facing a tough election cycle with the
conservative foot soldiers of the Republican base in a mood to
start fragging the officers. Hence, if any of this Republican
bloviating seems familiar, that’s because, like most of history, it’s
happened before.
Unlike most of history however, it hasn’t the decency to be
ancient and forgotten. The GOP dipped heavily into this well
only two short years ago. Yet rigor mortis hadn’t even set in on
the 2004 election’s corpse when the issue suddenly fell deader
than a Kerry stump speech. After spending half the campaign
proclaiming his unyielding support for the amendment, Bush
shoved it to the back burner. Sure, the religious right is handy
to have at the ballot box. But such folk are expected to sit
quietly when actual policy is being made. Meanwhile, Thune,
Bush and the GOP continued to be staunch supporters of the
effort to ban gay unions - with much the same type of staunch
support Americans show towards going on a diet and losing 20
pounds - and much the same results. Everyone may talk a good
game, but somebody’s still keeping McDonald’s in business.
What’s most interesting, of course, is not that the social
conservatives are being bought by this obvious bit of pandering.
After all, ideological groups are always for sale. They don’t call it
the marketplace of ideas for nothing. No, what’s most interesting
is that the asking price is so bargain-basement low. The move
to ban gay marriage carries virtually no political risk for the
GOP. Short of ruffling the feathers of a few Log Cabin
Republicans, this effort costs almost as little as it achieves.
In fact, save for a few conservative judicial appointments - and
the righties had to battle even for those (”Ms. Miers, line one, its
the president…”) - the social conservatives agenda has gained
surprisingly little ground over the past few years. At best, they
might manage the overturning of Roe v. Wade - the sort of Holy
Grail of social conservatism - but even that lofty achievement
would simply send the issue back to the states while politicizing
an abortion debate that the Republican leadership would
probably prefer stay quietly in the judicial arena where the Pro-
Choice wing of the party feels safe. In reality, the most notable
triumphs of social conservatism seem to be nothing more than a
string of vague, legislative wheel-spinning sessions: flag-
burning amendments that fail, gay marriage amendments that
go nowhere, pointless renamings of the national Christmas tree,
futile efforts to prolong Terri Schiavo’s life. Everyone may enjoy
sticking pins in the liberal voodoo doll but little real world
legislative work is ever done - and virtually none is even tried
until election time forces the RNC to break out the breads and
circuses. So the question remains: How long will the culture
warriors of the right continue to be satisfied with these sorts of
symbolic “victories” that never seem to win anything?
It may be awhile. Decades ago George Orwell’s “1984″
predicted that war would eventually become both utterly
continuous and tactically pointless, with the ultimate object
being “not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep
the structure of society intact.” Applied to a political context one
can hardly see a more appropriate paradigm for the Republican
Party. Like Oceania, the GOP’s war on liberalism seems far
more geared towards controlling the troops than towards
controlling the liberals. As for the soldiers of social
conservatism itself, the Republican Party may not be what they
thought or hoped it was. It may fail constantly to implement their
agenda. It may often not even make the attempt. But in the end,
what else can they do? Where else can social conservatives go?
The Republican Party may not be a chicken, but they need the
eggs.
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