www.kenstallings.com
Sometimes, one just
needs to hoist the liberals upon their own petard. For decades the libs
rammed down society's throat special prosecutorial provisions in otherwise
illegal actions by adding the moniker "hate speech" to the action.
Personally, I'd just prefer to prosecute the action and not the associated
speech.
Well, perhaps it is time to hoist Barney Frank upon his petard. How can
calling a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court a "homophobe" constitute
anything other than hate speech?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03 ... homophobe/
This is the same Barney Frank already
under rebuke for telling the American public that Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac were healthy merely months ahead of both imploding due to an avalanche
of debt security collections pursuant to the mortgage default wave.
But more importantly, it again shows the hatred that too many in the gay
community are now showing their fellow citizens. A respectful disagreement
isn't indicated when the other side consistently resorts to bigotry in its
rhetoric. Most Americans believe in a civil union provision allowing any
two adults to enter into a partnership. Personally I favor this for all
adults and believe it long overdue.
However, when we have Tom Hanks publicly label as "Un-American" anyone who
voted in favor of Proposition 8, which decertified same-sex marriages in
California, then you realize how overly far the personal intolerance has
gone.
Like many, I anticipated where this was headed. I had cautioned gay
activists to tread very cautiously in using their political capital to
force radical changes to the basic societal fabric. Instead, they should
have left the sacred compact of marriage alone and used their influence to
craft sensible domestic partnership laws. Instead, these activists chose
to upset the social order and draw condemnation from people who would have
supported them otherwise but not on the touchstone issue of marriage.
But using bigotry against people who want marriage left between men and
women is a serious misjudgment. It has already earned the ire of
mainstream Americans and it will backfire very badly. Worse, these same
gay activists routinely attempt to draw a moral comparison between their
actions and those of civil rights crusaders during the 1950's and 1960's.
The comparisons are empty, historically tone-deaf, and infuriating to
those who sacrificed so much to champion the end of Jim Crow racism in the
south and other less powerful forms of racism throughout the rest of
America.
You now have honored civil rights leaders denouncing these myopic efforts
at moral equivalency. These leaders rightly point out to the total absence
of any organized groups attacking, killing, and intimidating gays such as
the KKK did routinely to blacks in general and to civil rights leaders of
all races. When the isolated attack on a gay person is brought to court,
the courts rightly prosecute the criminal to the fullest extent of the
law. This is in sharp contrast to the generations of southern jury
nullification in cases of murder brought against Klansmen. To draw a
comparison is to engage in specious reasoning correctly seen as over-hyped
political grandstanding. The effort fails and brings discredit to the
activists who do it.
Most gays want nothing to do with the agenda-driven ideologues. They see
them much the way I do -- as political opportunists, more interested in
radicalism than in true social harmony. Unfortunately, the media focuses
upon the radical loudmouths.
There is no reason that two adults who are in a committed relationship
cannot have visitation rights consistent with family rights in a hospital.
There is no reason why two adults of any relationship cannot draft a
formal social contract providing for rights of joint property. Government
should have made provisions for this long ago. These are reasonable
actions. Trying to tear up a social institution that pre-dates modern law
is the worst form of agitation. It turns fair and principled people
against your otherwise reasonable goals and exposes those urging it as
frauds and radicals.
Barney Frank should be ashamed of himself but he's too radical to
understand why he should be. America is tired of the bitterness and wishes
a restoration of honorable debate principles in society's discourse. The
media needs to focus more on the common-sense pragmatic majority and less
on the shrill voices of radicalism.
-- Ken Stallings
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