"Evolving"

Interesting post from Amanda Marcotte on the far right's evolving positions on sexual orientation and, consequently, gay rights. She's working off this post by Igor Volsky at Think Progress:

Republican presidential candidates from Michele Bachmann to Mitt Romney continue to make offensive and homophobic remarks in debates and on the campaign trail, despite the public’s growing acceptance of gay people. It’s unlikely that these positions will resonate with a constituency beyond the party’s social conservative base, since, as Paul Thornton notes in today’s Los Angeles Times, “the radical ideas espoused by Bachmann, Perry, Santorum and others are [already] held up not for genuine consideration but for scorn.” “Perry’s and Bachmann’s views aren’t weighed against President Obama’s ‘evolving’ stance on same-sex marriage; rather, they are simply ridiculed. It says as much about our society as it does the candidates.”

I think both Volsky and Marcotte are missing one point: Perry, Bachmann, et al. right now are playing to the base -- which in their case is the extreme right of the party -- and may not have twigged to the fact that these remarks are going to come back at them in the Republican primaries and the general election -- assuming either of them makes it that far.

Back to Marcotte:

Here's what I find fascinating about all this: the "homosexuality is like alcoholism" thing actually came about because social conservatives are trying to sound more tolerant of gays. It's actually an attempt to evade accusations of bigotry. The old line was basically that gays are molesters and perverts who only do gay stuff because they're bad people. The narrative is that gays are broken people with a disease, a compulsion---and that they need "help" to overcome it. But the public saw through that attempt at revisionism as quickly as it was concocted.

Given the increasingly bad repute of "ex-gay" organizations and "reparative therapy" in general, how long does anyone think this stance is going to last? As more people realize that they know, not just gay people, but normal, well-adjusted, happy gay people, that's just not going to hold water.

Of course, you've still got those such as Linda Harvey, whose new tack is that there is no such thing as a gay person. That, of course, is the ideal condition for the anti-gay right: just deny that we exist. Harvey is on the fringe even in that fringe group -- and it more and more is becoming a fringe group. You can tell by the increasing shrillness in their public statements.

Marcotte's right on one point: those positions are increasingly subject to ridicule. It's a progression, if you will. (Given the laughability of "evolution" in this regard, particularly as concerns same-sex marriage, I don't want to cast it in those terms. I don't think anyone really believes the president is "evolving" -- I think they believe he's a politician working toward the next election.)

It's sort of fun to watch a movement that exists to marginalize people becoming marginalized itself. I think the term is "schadenfreude."