Timothy Kincaid on Bob Barr

Timothy Kincaid has an excellent post up at BTB on Bob Barr, whom you may remember as the author of DOMA. You may also know that Barr has changed his mind -- not out of any newfound love for gay people, but as a matter of principle.

But the bombing of the World Trade center in 2001, coupled with the federal government’s crack down on civil freedoms, woke Barr up. His libertarianism ceased to be (as it is for many Republicans) a platitude around which exceptions are the norm and he began to question whether many of the positions he had one time championed were not actually in direct violation to the principles which he espoused.

It's a good analysis -- read it.

Although Kincaid thinks that Barr's new stance may serve to reposition the discourse, at least in legitimately conservative circles, I'm not so sanguine. It's certainly going to have no effect on the professional homophobes, who already see their cash cow drying up, but as we learned from the experience of GOProud and CPAC, establishment wingnuts are not going to sit still for any accommodation with gays: Barr's appeal is to principle, and these are not principled people.

As for the base, they're largely operating on lizard brain, and to demand that they actually consider the ramifications of the Constitution they claim to worship, especially when it applies to people they disapprove of, is going to overtax their resources, I'm pretty sure.

I don't mean to sound morbid, but the idea that American political discourse is driven by reason or principle these days is clearly wishful thinking. If Barr can be enlisted to lobby his former colleagues in Congress, that would be wonderful -- he has the contacts and the knowledge to be very effective (assuming the teabaggers will listen to an ex-Republican, because in spite of their rhetoric, they're no more libertarian than I am -- in fact, I'd say demonstrably less).

But Barr's speech, which Kincaid links to, and Kincaid's post do serve the very useful purpose of moving the gay rights debate up a level, for those who are inclined to listen, an may provide an additional resource for those willing and able to use it. And I think this comment by Kincaid puts the whole thing in the proper perspective:

Marriage is a contract, a social, emotional, and financial agreement based on terms, conditions, and promises. These vows we may pledge, be it in front of an alter (sic) with family, friends and God as witness, or privately and quietly.

We can marry; that isn’t really our issue. Our issue is whether the state will recognize and enforce this contract.

And we have the right to demand that it do so. And opponents who argue that we can have wills, and powers of attorney, and ‘designated funeral-planning agent’ forms to provide “many of the same benefits” should be made to explain why it is that the state may enforce those contracts, but not the one we have already made.

It's not that we have to prove that we deserve the same rights as every other citizen; the government has to prove that we do not, and so far, it can't.