"Marriage Equality Is a Conservative Cause"

[Talint]

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...tive-cause485/

The party of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan has now lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. The marketplace of ideas will render us irrelevant, and soon, if we are not honest about our time and place in history. Unfortunately, much of the discussion has focused on cosmetic solutions to, say, our underperformance among ethnic and young voters. This is a mistake: we cannot cross this river by feeling for stones. Instead, we need to take a hard look at what today’s conservatism stands for.

Conservatives can start by examining how Republicans working with Democrats have governed in several successful states, including Utah; free-market-based healthcare reform, tax reform that eliminated deductions and closed loopholes to bring down rates, and practical education reforms that spoke to 21st-century realities.

Instead of using immigration reform as a wedge issue, like many leaders in Washington, Utah passed legislation to help manage immigration based on our real economic needs. If conservatives come to the table with solutions that put our communities first, it will go a long way toward winning elections.

But it’s difficult to get people even to consider your reform ideas if they think, with good reason, you don’t like or respect them. Building a winning coalition to tackle the looming fiscal and trust deficits will be impossible if we continue to alienate broad segments of the population. We must be happy warriors who refuse to tolerate those who want Hispanic votes but not Hispanic neighbors. We should applaud states that lead on reforming drug policy. And, consistent with the Republican Party’s origins, we must demand equality under the law for all Americans.

While serving as governor of Utah, I pushed for civil unions and expanded reciprocal benefits for gay citizens. I did so not because of political pressure—indeed, at the time 70 percent of Utahns were opposed—but because as governor my role was to work for everybody, even those who didn’t have access to a powerful lobby. Civil unions, I believed, were a practical step that would bring all citizens more fully into the fabric of a state they already were—and always had been—a part of.

That was four years ago. Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love.

All Americans should be treated equally by the law, whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience.

Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans.

This is both the right thing to do and will better allow us to confront the real choice our country is facing: a choice between the Founders’ vision of a limited government that empowers free markets, with a level playing field giving opportunity to all, and a world of crony capitalism and rent-seeking by the most powerful economic interests.

Adam Smith was not only an architect of the modern world of extraordinary economic opportunity, he was a moralist whose first book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The foundation of his thought was his insight that free markets and open commerce strengthened our moral fiber by reinforcing the community of shared and reciprocal economic interests. Government, he thought, had to be limited lest it be captured and corrupted by special business interests who wanted protection from competition and the reciprocal requirements of community.

We are at a crossroads. I believe the American people will vote for free markets under equal rules of the game—because there is no opportunity or job growth any other way. But the American people will not hear us out if we stand against their friends, family, and individual liberty.

[Clash Perez]

I love how the very first line is, "We're doing this because we're losing elections."

and then the rest of the paragraph tries to claim otherwise.

[Mazmaz]

He said the popular vote.

[ronin sparthos]

Jon, your party is owned by moneyed interests and religious fundies that dont give a shit about rights, America, free markets or fairness. Didnt you notice they only want espresso shots of kill the gays, feed blacky to the watermelon king, send the hispanics back to Tiajuana and put women back in the kitchen when guys like Herman Cain and Rick the prick Santorum got national spotlight over you?

[Lucavi]

He said nothing about religion in that letter, which is why this will fail. You can't have Conservative and Gay Marriage if you continue to have Conservative and Religion. If anything, they "real conservatives" that have hijacked the Republican name as of late, will oust this guy and bring in another "true patriot" to run the show, which is exactly what Dems are planning on to win yet another election.

Even if he somehow "gets it" in terms of what it takes to win an election in today's mixed society, he still doesn't "get" (or isn't willing to acknowledge in this nice little speech) that religion is the main driver of Republican dogma of today, not conservatism. Religion adds to the mass-produced fear that conservatives spread about anyone who doesn't look and think like them, and that fear will continue to render them irrelevant.

[Talint]

He said nothing about religion in that letter, which is why this will fail. You can't have Conservative and Gay Marriage if you continue to have Conservative and Religion. If anything, they "real conservatives" that have hijacked the Republican name as of late, will oust this guy and bring in another "true patriot" to run the show, which is exactly what Dems are planning on to win yet another election.

Even if he somehow "gets it" in terms of what it takes to win an election in today's mixed society, he still doesn't "get" (or isn't willing to acknowledge in this nice little speech) that religion is the main driver of Republican dogma of today, not conservatism. Religion adds to the mass-produced fear that conservatives spread about anyone who doesn't look and think like them, and that fear will continue to render them irrelevant.

I've argued before that actual conservatives should really be in favor of gay marriage, as enacting laws to the contrary is a prime example of big gubbermint at work. I genuinely don't get this disconnect, and I'm just happy to see one Republican finally understand the paradox within their party.

Even the most staunch of conservatives (Lindsay Graham, Ron Paul, etc.) are deaf on the issue.

The southern strategy's seeds have finally been sewn. Good job Nixon/Ronnie.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I still think the Republican Party is going to have a schism and we'll end up with a new party, with Republicans being relegated to tiny-third-party status.

[Ragnus]

The Tea Party sect of the Repubs are definitely starting to get to that tipping point of being the party they've infected in my opinion.

[kuronosan]

I think we're going to have a party of Republicans (neo-conservatives), and then we're going to have the Tea Party Republicans (ultra conservatives).

[Howie Roary]

a 3 party vote in the US? outrageous

[Dotsudoku]

Is there even a chance that a conservative party with an evicted tea party would sway enough undecided voters to have that accomplish anything other than handing presidencies to the left?

[hey]

Is there even a chance that a conservative party with an evicted tea party would sway enough undecided voters to have that accomplish anything other than handing presidencies to the left?

Doubtful.

[ronin sparthos]

I've argued before that actual conservatives should really be in favor of gay marriage, as enacting laws to the contrary is a prime example of big gubbermint at work. I genuinely don't get this disconnect, and I'm just happy to see one Republican finally understand the paradox within their party.

Even the most staunch of conservatives (Lindsay Graham, Ron Paul, etc.) are deaf on the issue.

The southern strategy's seeds have finally been sewn. Good job Nixon/Ronnie.

The disconnect is dogmatic religious belief that imposes an idea of racial, social and gender superiority that supersedes the mantra of "small" government.

Endgame is a theocratic regime that enforces Christian superiority bred in by the church and reinforced by the political clout of the devout.

[Gwynplaine]

There are different strains of thought within both parties and the Republicans are no different. The Theocrat collectivists want big government, they just want THEIR preferred version of big government that enforces their preferred religion. But yes in fact there are (some) Republicans who want to protect individual rights including the right to marry whoever you want.

Although the vast majority of politicians are plain old pragmatists, they will do something if they get kicked in the knackers hard enough to rationalize it. Like Milton Friedman said: political change is about getting the wrong people to do the right thing. You don't have to throw all the bums out all the time.

[quannum]

Who are the names that come to mind when you think about leaders of the Tea Party movement? Maybe Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann? Those were the most popular leaders listed by self-identified Tea Party activists in a 2010 Washington Post poll, at the height of the movement. You could add to that list a handful of other congressmen, especially outspoken Reps. Steve King, Allen West and Joe Walsh, among others.

And then you’d realize that every single one of them either lost their job or abandoned being a voice of the movement.

...

So who does that leave?

Slim pickings. The House is almost bereft of young, outspoken Tea Party leaders, with the possible exception of Michigan Republican Justin Amash, but he’s staked out a staunch antiwar position that will make him unpalatable to many more hawkish conservatives. The Senate has more promise, with the two most obvious contenders being Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who are just now stepping up their profile.

It’s a far cry from the heady days of 2009, 2010 and 2011, but it’s probably not the leaders’ fault. The Tea Party in general has mostly disappeared on its own.

.

[hey]

strains of thought

[BaneTheBrawler]

Don't act surprised, Hey. We've all known that thinking is hard for politicians, this only confirms it.

[Howie Roary]

uh, Ron Paul was/is Tea Party? I never really kept up, but he seemed to have had a lot of good ideas any time I saw a list of them suggested

I never knew why people didn't take him more seriously, anyone have a brief run-down of his crazy?

[Lucavi]

Is there even a chance that a conservative party with an evicted tea party would sway enough undecided voters to have that accomplish anything other than handing presidencies to the left?

For Democrats, I suppose that's the "master plan" here.

[quannum]

uh, Ron Paul was/is Tea Party? I never really kept up, but he seemed to have had a lot of good ideas any time I saw a list of them suggested

I never knew why people didn't take him more seriously, anyone have a brief run-down of his crazy?

Ron paul supporters/libertarians started the tea party. it was subverted by the koch brothers into what most people know it as.

He wants to get rid of the federal department of education amongst other libtard policies.