Who’s the Hypocrite?
by Patrick Ruffini :: August 29th, 2007 1:28 am I come down on the “Craig-must-resign” side of the fence (the man pleaded guilty to a crime), but I have to say that my disdain for the odious outing campaigns of Mike Rogers (and sanctioned by the likes of Glenn Greenwald) continues unabated. The only hypocrites here are the live-and-let-live left that continues to preach an absolute separation between public performance and private morality, and yet seeks to demolish that wall when it is politically expedient for them, doing so in the most personally invasive manner possible. For a self-proclaimed expert on and defender of privacy like Greenwald, the irony is rich.
Most Catholics reject the idea that being pro-choice disqualifies one of their brethren from public office. Evangelical voters in places like Iowa and South Carolina seem to do just fine in separating their deep personal suspicions of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith with their support for his candidacy. Most poignantly, Dick Cheney stated his support for gay rights in the last campaign in an October town hall meeting in socially conservative Iowa, and was applauded. In the last weekend of the campaign, President Bush announced his support for civil unions. John Kerry and John Edwards tried to stoke wholly fabricated Evangelical hostility to Mary Cheney, and it probably cost them any chance of winning the election.
When it comes to personal morality and voting decisions, Christian conservatives are a lot more sophisticated than the hateful outers of the left. Their public agenda is not targeted at anyone’s personal behavior, but at legitimate public policy discussions about our government’s sanction of different behaviors. Agree or disagree, their agenda is a public agenda, advanced in the public square, and not through vicious smear tactics.
Using the outers’ logic, it is now legitimate to throw this time-hallowed tradition out the window, and for conservative Christians to inject their personal moral and theological views into their voting decisions, and in deciding who gets to continue in public office. Is that the road they really want to go down?
I could more easily see the case for hypocrisy in Ted Haggard, who preached against homosexual behavior. For all their obvious failings and predatory, even law-breaking, behavior, Larry Craig and Mark Foley never did that. Gay marriage and gays in the military are policy questions, not personal ones, and ones on which people of good faith can disagree. Opposing them does not make one a homophobe, or even anti-gay. And I think all of us should be offended by the notion that upholding the ideal of family values, even when we don’t always reach it, makes one a gay-baiter.
As someone who is happily married, it never occurred to me think of this status as a “right.” It is just that — a status — one for 4,000 years conferred upon a man and a woman by society and nearly all religious congregations. If you think that statement makes me anti-gay, I’m afraid it’s more equal opportunity than that. See, I don’t believe there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, and that covers abortion, marriage, and any sexual behavior, straight or gay. Conferring the loaded language of “rights” to intimate relationships is patently ridiculous. Everyone has a basic right to function in society, to hold jobs, to have access to equal accommodations, etc. and that includes gays.
As for public benefits, we seem to be heading to a compromise where gays can be de facto married for the purposes of the state, more commonly under the umbrella of civil unions. That’s fine by me. I’m also fine with letting individual congregations be the keepers of the term “marriage,” defining it as narrowly or loosely as they see fit. This probably puts me in the libertarian camp. What I object to is the Left’s campaign to seizing the instrumentality of government to redefine the institution of marriage, thereby imposing it on the rest of society. They’re doing exactly what they accuse the worst elements of the Right of.
As for Craig’s personal life, that’s something he is going to have work through with his family. In the end, it would be better if more gays were able to serve openly in public life, as Republican Representatives Jim Kolbe and Steve Gunderson were, since the ones that don’t always seem to end their public lives in tragedy. And whatever Craig’s failings, they had nothing to do with his voting record.
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great article patrick! well said.
“I’m also fine with letting individual congregations be the keepers of the term “marriage,” defining it as narrowly or loosely as they see fit. This probably puts me in the libertarian camp.”
As an avowed leftist, I have no problem with completely removing the notion of marriage from government and letting everyone decide what they want to. That probably won’t happen because at the end of the day most people on the Right (not necessarily you) want to impose their belief system on everyone else–from marriage, to public schools, to posting the Ten Commandments, etc. (How bout putting a big ole Koran in the Alabama courthouse? What legal remedy will you have to remove it then?)
When government grants rights for some and not others, it’s an issue of denying equal protection under the law.
“…yet seeks to demolish that wall when it is politically expedient for them, doing so in the most personally invasive manner possible. For a self-proclaimed expert on and defender of privacy like Greenwald, the irony is rich.”
Is it personally invasive when a U.S. Senator asks for sex in a public restroom? And then to point out the hypocrisy of that person who called Bill Clinton a “nasty, naughty boy.” I don’t even believe Craig, who did plead guilty, actually broke any laws.
The right to privacy, which among other things helps cameras from being installed in all of our homes, is a right OF citizens FROM their government. You are stretching the right of privacy into something it’s not: the idea that individual citizens must turn a blind eye to the actions of their representatives.
Larry Craig can cheat on his wife and be gay until the cows come home. The problem is calling other people naughty when you yourself are a philanderer.
Let me clarify one line a wrote, which is ambiguus in retrospect–”a right OF citizens FROM their government”
I better way of stating it is, the right to privacy is a right of citizens to not have their privacy invaded by the government.
I absolutely agree that not being for gay marriage does not make you anti-gay. There is a whole section of our gay community which actually is against gay-marriage (although for different reasons).
That said, it is because you have been married for so long, with the person you wanted, when you wanted that you don’t see it as a “right”
Try being deprived of it and you may see things differently.
And the idea that the definition of marriage has been the same for 4000 years is just wrong. Do you remember that as long as 40 years ago, black and whites could not marry ? That the idea of marrying for love was widely ridiculed in some parts of European society only a few centuries ago ? That even today teenagers are allowed to marry in some states with their parent’s consents ? That polygamy was legal in a handful of states less than a century ago ?
The definition of marriage has evolved over the years. If the system was such as the European system where there are two ceremonies of marriage : one for everyone in a government building and an extra one, in a religious establishment for those who want, then making a distinction between the definitions of marriage may make sense. But if you combine the two and recognize religious marriages then you need to leave an opportunity to gays to have civil marriages.
My personal vote would be for a system were the state would grant everyone civil unions that would ensure the rights, benefits and responsabilities of what is called marriage today and “marriage” itself would become an incidental religious institution that would bring a spiritual sense to the unions of those who want to add it ON TOP of the civil union that any two consenting adults in love would commit to and would be granted by the state.
But if the state recognizes the right of religious communities to marry people, that does not give religious communities the right to impose their definition of it on the rest of society.
JMO But the bottom line of your post is that we can disagree without calling each other names and supposing you are an homophobe because you dont see things my way and I agree with that.
What I wish you would acknowledge is that a HUGE proportion of those who object to gay marriages do not do it for logical or well-thought of reasons. They do it because of their instinctive more-or-less religiously based or at least culturally based rejection and discomfort towards homosexuality.
And THAT is not grounds for denying a minority of Americans of their chance to make their case.
And unfortunately for the gay community and rational opponents of gay marriage, it is on this basis that the discussion has taken the huge proportions it has in the current public discourse.
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Patrick Ruffini: Whos the Hypocrite? …
This is an excellent piece on the Sen. Larry Craig issue by Patrick Ruffini. His site has become a many times per day read for me. I think that what he has to say shows the changing face of conservatism. The days of conservatism being linked to racism …
[…] And finally, let us go to the wingnut of wingnuts, the absolute king of twisted, circular logic. Take your vertigo medication now, because you’ll need it when trying to follow the “logic” of Patrick Ruffini. Using the outers’ logic, it is now legitimate to throw this time-hallowed tradition out the window, and for conservative Christians to inject their personal moral and theological views into their voting decisions, and in deciding who gets to continue in public office. Is that the road they really want to go down? […]