FGB Part II

I know I said I was through with wingnuts for today, and this isn't really about wingnuts. This post by Joe Brummer, who is one of those moderate, reasonable, polite, rational commenters on the left (i.e., one of the ones that the right says don't exist while they're trolling around for weirdos at DailyKos) brings a whole 'nother concept into play that has a place, I think, in the dispute between Carpenter and Besen (see today's FGB).

I don't generally accuse people of being haters. Well, sometimes I may have done that, but it's generally a slip -- I get pissed off, too. What is more to the point is that there are, without doubt, those who are using hate, whatever their personal feelings (such as George W. Bush, who claims to have gay friends but would die before he'd actually publicly support their rights), to gain political power. Among these are the people on the list I included in the post about Matthew Shepherd's funeral. I have no idea if any of these people actually hate any gay people they know, although they do a good job of giving the impression that they hate gays as a group. I don't know them (nor, all things considered, do I especially care to meet them -- once we've exhausted the weather as a topic, we would have nothing to talk about). But they are all actively engaged in using hate as a device to expand their own power. That, I think, is much more germane to Brummer's post and to Rev. Foster and his site. (Full disclosure: I haven't visited Foster's site, nor do I intend to. I have no reason to disbelieve Brummer, who has demonstrated his care and fairness in the past.) Foster's tactics as described by Brummer fit in very neatly with the general course of these things, which includes not only discussions of gay rights but creationism as well: in brief, it boils down to "We'll have a polite, reasonable discussion as long as we do it entirely on my terms and with my definitions." The exchange between Glenn T. Stanton and Patrick Chapman at Box Turtle Bulletin is a sterling case in point: every time push came to shove, Stanton attempted to reframe the argument. That seems to be what Foster is doing here.

This also has some resonance with the idea of "compromise," which is germane to my comments on Jonathan Rauch's reaction to the Connecticut marriage decision: we're dealing with people who are not going to allow a compromise. It's not in their vocabulary, and it's not like they're keeping it a secret. After all, when your god has told you the Truth, there are no other considerations. That's one reason I consider the whining of commentators such as Rauch and Dale Carpenter about being satisfied with civil unions as a step in the right direction to be entirely wrong-headed and blind: the right will do everything in their power to nullify civil unions and domestic partnerships. Witness the wording on the 2006 Arizona marriage amendment, and their attempts to link civil unions and domestic partnerships with marriage in the courts.

OK. End of rant, mild-mannered though it was.