(Mark Luckovich via GoComics.com)
.
Julia Carpenter at Esquire has a wittily informative “Roundup of Roundups” on this week’s arguments. (I would not have seen Newsweek‘s Tumbler without her notice.)
Mr. Charles Pierce on DOMA’s backstory:
… It is a law born of casual expedience. It arose from the blind sex panic of conservative congresscritters that erupted when Hawaii’s Supreme Court demanded that Hawaii show a compelling state interest in banning same-sex marriage. It was introduced in the Congress by Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, one of the unquestioned stars of what later would become the pursuit of the presidential penis around the Beltway. (Barr wrote a book advocating impeachment long before anyone ever heard of Monica Lewinsky.) In addition to being a proud demonstration of bigotry, DOMA also was a deliberate bear-trap set for Democratic politicians, which definitely included President Bill Clinton. It passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly. with quite a few Democrats deploring the law prior to voting for it. Clinton signed it on September 22, just as the homestretch of his walkover campaign against Republican Bob Dole was hitting the homestretch. It was exactly one month to the day after he’d also signed the more-punitive-than-it-had-to-be welfare reform act that essentially ended the federal welfare program. Both acts bore the signature of Morris, the dark genius of triangulation…
That calculation reaches its final limits in front of the Court today. Clinton himself has disowned it, The current administration essentially has orphaned the law, refusing to enforce it before the courts. (It’s the House Republican leadership who is arguing in favor of DOMA today. Yeah, and the worst result of the sequester is that we don’t have the money to spend on the White House tours.) It’s taken a proper beating in the lower courts and, of course, the political calculus on the issue has been turned completely on its head…
Professional cynic Jon Chait, at NYMag, jeers “The Slow Death of the Anti-Gay Marriage Movement”:
… The unusual thing about the campaign to ban gay marriage is that it was dying from the moment it was born. Even at its peak, at the very outset, the portents of doom were visible on the horizon — polls showed that young voters strongly supported gay marriage. The best case for Gallagher and her allies appeared to be holding on for years, or even decades, but eventually gay-marriage opponents would age out of the electorate.
Gallagher understood from the beginning that she had to fight that sense of eventual inevitability. Here she is writing a column for National Review in December 2004 whose thesis is captured in its headline, “Not Inevitable.” In the face of clear evidence, Gallagher seized on whatever tiny glimmers of demographic hope she could find. One poll found that while young adults favored gay marriage, teens did not. Was this a statistical blip due to a tiny sample size? Not to Gallagher, who saw it as evidence that “most likely, as more adults voice firm objections to gay marriage, they appear to be having an impact on their children’s attitudes and values.”…
Today, the movement has advanced far more rapidly than expected, and it is hard to find much hope at all in Gallagher. She increasingly casts those on her own side as victims. Gallagher insists, in an interview with National Review — she has given up her column — the cause is about “the core civil rights of 7 million Californians to vote on the marriage question.” The rights of a gay couple to marry cannot be allowed to trample on the rights of heterosexuals to vote to ban them from getting married.
The surest sign of resignation is that Gallagher has redirected her focus from stopping gay marriage to preserving the dignity of her reputation and those of her fellow believers. She now presents her cause as a kind of civil rights movement to protect her fellow believers from the stigma of advocating bigotry and discrimination…
And Brian Palmer at Slate finds the silver lining — some things have changed since Loving v Virginia:
… Virginia didn’t merely critique the parenting skills of interracial couples—the state attacked their very mental stability. Again citing Gordon, McIlwaine claimed that people who have the temerity to engage in interracial marriage have a “rebellious attitude towards society, self-hatred, neurotic tendencies, immaturity, and other detrimental psychological factors.” The implication was that these qualities rendered them unfit parents. The fact that the defenders of Prop 8 did not make similar arguments about gay people before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, even though such attitudes still exist, is an indication of how society has changed since 1967. (The language used in the oral arguments is another indication: Both the justices and the attorneys in the Loving oral argument repeatedly used antiquated racial terms like Mongol, Malay, negro, and mongrel.)…
Redshirt
It’s not really about “The Gays” anyways. It’s about “The Others” and every culture, everytime, every scene chooses their meme. It’s infinite.
Mnemosyne
As usual, the Onion captured the story that I wish this was:
Supreme Court On Gay Marriage: ‘Sure, Who Cares’
David Koch
Roberta Kaplan was very powerful in today’s arguments and she should be on Obummer’s short list when he replaces Scalia and Kennedy in the near future.
Matt McIrvin
Not only has Clinton disowned DOMA, Bob Barr has disowned DOMA.
YellowJournalism
@Matt McIrvin: But those guys are hypocrites, according to the TV pundit who once compared gay marriage to marrying a turtle and screamed for years about how acknowledging openly gay couples as harmful morally damaging to young children.
David Koch
John Roberts’ gay cousin gave an interview a couple of days ago saying what a great guy he is and how she believes he would do the right thing.
She must be crushed considering how he acted.
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism:
Waitaminute…this is all about Elaine Chao?
? Martin
Name a social issue where that isn’t true. Some arcs may be longer than others, but they all bend the same way. Even the gun issue will get there in time.
Full Metal Wingnut
Ah yes. Bob Barr. Wasn’t he the libertarian nominee for president in 08? Yeah. Libertarian wrote DOMA. Hmmmm.
Reminds me of my favorite joke. What do you call a Republican who likes to smoke pot? Libertarian
Full Metal Wingnut
@YellowJournalism: Well, I’m a Big Dog fanboy. But Bob Barr? Fuck ‘im.
Viva BrisVegas
@? Martin: Only after all the guns are traded in for phasers.
Foregone Conclusion
I think that the anti-equal marriage forces grabbed pretty quickly onto the fact that the demographic tides were against them. That’s why they were scrambling through the mid-noughties to amend state constitutions to outlaw any kind of same-sex union (well, that and Karl Rove’s cynical calculation that it would drive Republican turnout). Who the heck thought in 2004 that Mississippi or Arkansas would approve same-sex marriage in the forseeable future? It wasn’t exactly a pressing danger that either judicial remedy or legislative action would lead to it.
It was meant to be a firewall which would take longer and require more effort to unpick. It was inevitably a desperate strategy – begging for time, presumably to await some kind of literal miracle to deliver America from the gay menace. And goodness knows, it’ll work in ‘real America’ for a good few years yet (barring a very broad judgement by SCOTUS in the near future) in places as purplish as Michigan and North Carolina. But I’m pretty sure that there won’t be some massive homophobic turn in public opinion, and I think they’re going to be disappointed if they think that Jesus is going to part the clouds and order his servants to vote against Proposition 15B or whatever.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, my Schadenfreude meter is taking another beating as Maggie Gallagher suffers.
Twist slowly, slowly in the wind, harpy.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: They wouldn’t need to try to ban it if they didn’t think people were going to be doing it.
Or what Foregone Conclusion just said.
Calming Influence
I will be SO glad when this whole “Marriage Equality” thing is behind us and my gay friends will just shut up about it and get married. I found a copy of Town & Country Weddings in the guest bathroom after some friends visited, fer Christ sake, and my wife and I have been married for 30 years. Please let it be over!
GregB
Poor Maggie Gallagher, she’s this generations Bull Connor only with less charm.
Also, a big eff you to all of these conservative dill-holes who are jumping up and down calling support for marriage equality the conservative position.
Wrong.
Thor Heyerdahl
Shit, us Canucks have had same-sex marriage for just about 8 years now – and the only evil it brought was Steven Harper into office.
We’re still like a bunch of northern Minnesotans – except nicer. Just don’t piss us off about hockey eh!
Omnes Omnibus
@Thor Heyerdahl: Fuck Minnesota, even the goddamned northern part. I can deal with the UP because – okay, Yoopers are Packer fans – they are okay. Just sayin’.
Nemo_N
This can be used against pretty much any kind of people someone doesn’t like. Hell, I can picture it being used to describe porn actresses.
burnspbesq
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t remember exactly when Barr had his road-to-Damascus moment, but for all his flaws he gets it on most civil liberties issues.
FlipYrWhig
@Nemo_N: Sounds like most people I DO like.
? Martin
@Foregone Conclusion:
That’s the only real reason. That’s why Rove is now ginning up outrage over the gun stuff – it’s a GOTV effort. Go look at the history behind the anti-abortion efforts. Much of the religious right was not opposed to abortion after Roe:
That was the view from the southern baptists. Only the catholics bishops were strongly opposed – all of the protestant groups were on the liberal side – at least to a large degree. The issue changed in the late 70s when the GOP saw a wedge issue before them and politicized it, offering religious voters a source of power they never previously had. It was purely a GOTV issue, and the energy of the movement sprung from that motivation.
Civil rights was the same. Gay marriage was the same. Immigration was the same. Anti-tax fervor is the same. Gun control is currently the same. It’s no coincidence that the base of all of these movements resides in the same part of the country – they’re just getting rolled from one wedge issue to the next. The anti-gay marriage folks never gave up on the issue – it’s the GOP that gave up, because it no longer works as a wedge. It works against them now, so of course their position changed. The anti-gay marriage forces are being abandoned by the GOP, just as the GOP has abandoned every other group in the past when it became politically expedient to do so. There is no moral conviction in the GOP. There are no principles. This is and has always been about raising a political army, convincing them that the GOP would advance their issue, when in fact the army is working solely for the benefit of the GOP.
Calming Influence
@Thor Heyerdahl: I don’t have a clue how good you are at hockey, but I bow to your papyrus boat building skills.
Petorado
Thought SCOTUS has yet to make its rulings, it’s been stunning to watch how rapidly and thoroughly the eternal culture war against gays is now vanishing, raising the inevitable question, “WTF was that all about anyway?”
It makes one wonder what will happen to other culture war issues like the economic culture war against the less affluent, the war against immigrants, battles over reproductive freedom, religious hegemony, and other right wing culture conflicts? Will resistance towards those likewise melt away or will they start doubling down on the ones they haven’t lost yet?
ETA: Martin @22 clarified that to a good extent.
Irish Steel
It’s Tumblr. I’m not saying it should be, but it is.
You’re Wlcome
Yutsano
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Damn. Maybe I should have married the Canuck! I might have prevented this!
Foregone Conclusion
@? Martin:
I can see the benefit of that in a swing state. But Rove knew that he was going to win the South and the Mountain West by a heavy margin in 2004, yet there’s a whole string of these ballot initiatives in Deep Red states – Mississippi, Montana, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah. In most of these, there aren’t even competitive downticket races to try and win. There wasn’t a same-sex marriage initiative in 2004 in anything which could reasonably be called a swing state, except for Ohio and Michigan. Not a very evenly applied tactic if it really was just that.
Alison
So, apologies if this has been brought up, either here in comments, in other articles, or even at the court (because hell no I did not read/listen to every word, because UGH)…but…it’s not like we have no way of knowing what marriage equality will bring. We have states where it’s already happening! Shit, hasn’t it been legal in MA for like a fucking decade? Plus NY, Iowa, and a handful of others. So…why not ask the lawyer arguing for Prop 8 and DOMA, well, show us in these states the deleterious and damaging effects of same-sex marriage. What’s happened in those states since they enacted marriage equality that you can say “This is a negative result directly stemming from that event”? And something more than just “Oh, some people are grossed out”.
if they can’t cite any noticeable, quantifiable and objectively negative outcomes that can be directly blamed on marriage equality, well then…what the fuck is their argument about?
Stupid.
MikeJ
@Foregone Conclusion:
Trying to win the national popular vote by driving up turnout in those states.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
Yep, this. They didn’t want a repeat of 2000 with W winning the electoral college but losing the popular vote, so they used those ballot initiatives to drive up turnout in solid red states that might otherwise have been less enthusiastic because of stuff like war in Iraq and economic stagnation.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison:
something they don’t want to say out loud: ” Gay people are icky, and we want them to go away”.
? Martin
@Foregone Conclusion:
But it built energy to bring those issues to places like California, and it did turn out conservatives in 2008. Obama still won here, but the GOP did better than they should have in state and house races. Without that inertia built in the deep red states, they never would have had the infrastructure and ability to sway voters to get the issue on the ballot in the blue states. They got national coverage for the issue. They know what they’re doing by taking over these state legislatures and building a wave of support behind a given policy. Look at how far into states like PA they’ve gotten with voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and whatnot. Look at how much damage they’re doing in places like Michigan – there’s nothing bipartisan about their actions there. That’s not a swing state agenda they’re advancing.
? Martin
@Alison:
Winning. Being on the popular side of an issue. Saying they were right. Which the GOP is more than happy to enable and ride along with.
Until it crashes. And then they all move on to their next shiny.
Foregone Conclusion
@? Martin:
On the broader point… I think there’s been a lot of cynical uses of wedge issues by the Republicans over the years. You’d have to be stupid to think otherwise. But to pretend that the Republican Right just magicked up the opposition to Roe among evangelical Christians is pretty flimsy.
Yes, there was a liberal Southern Baptist press until the 1980s which was at least equivocal on abortion (because as far as I can see the quote you gave me is not from any official statement of the Conference, but from the Baptist press), and I don’t think it had the immediate salience then that it did a few years down the line. But the story of the Southern Baptists in the late 1970s is an exemplary one for the wider story of conservatism. Basically, the conservatives chucked all the liberals out, and made it very clear to the remaining moderates who was in charge. All this with not a GOP operative in sight. It indicates the bottom-up nature of a lot of this, especially in the early years. Let’s not let the crazies off the hook – they were always there, they didn’t need any GOP pols to hold their hands before bursting out onto the scene, and I don’t think they were hoodwinked by anyone.
Alison
@? Martin: But they’re NOT on the popular side. That’s the thing. All the polls now show majority or at least plurality-close-to-majority support for equality. They haven’t been on the “winning” side for a few years now.
MikeJ
@Foregone Conclusion:
Well, until 1980. That’s when Adrian Rodgers took the helm and the whole thing went to hell. Since most people pay no attention to nonsense like church elections it seemed like a coup to a lot of people.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: they’re trying to shove Gay people back into the closet.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Good fucking luck. I mean, I may be basically a hermit but I ain’t hiding who I am, especially not for people who hate me.
They’re so pathetic, really.
Hill Dweller
@Alison:
That’s absolutely true, but you’d never know it listening to the Village. The average person also wouldn’t know the Republicans’ behavior over over the last 4 years is unprecedented/radical, because they’re not being told by high profile journalists.
It is virtually impossible to overstate how much damage the MSM has inflicted on this country in the last 30 years. Even now, with a Republican party that has gone f’n crazy, they still cover for them.
It’s hard not to get discouraged.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: I realize I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but they’re not very bright. They want to roll back a clock that only goes one way, and are confused and bitter.
Citizen Alan
@Foregone Conclusion:
It was a combination of factors. Abortion initially was not an issue in the SBC. Then, in the late 70’s, the IRS under Carter started going after the tax exempt status of private bible colleges that were still segregated (most famously Bob Jones U). The SBC, which was mainly led by a cabal of elderly segregationist preachers, turned to the GOP, and signed on to a rabidly anti-abortion policy if the Catholics would sign onto opposition to black civil rights. Reagan was ready to receive them both. IIRC, Pat Buchanan wrote a famous memo to Nixon suggesting that abortion be used as a wedge to separate the Catholics from the Democrats, so that was part of it too.
amk
@Hill Dweller: yup, msm are the main enablers of the wingers and their party, the gop.
Shalimar
@Foregone Conclusion:
Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. Getting every single possible vote mattered in 2004 for Rove, even in the deepest red states.
Thor Heyerdahl
Cole I hope you’re happy. Your Penguins now have Jerome Iginla to join in the offensive attack.
When’s the last time Crosby and Iginla were linemates? When they were on the ice together for Canada’s gold medal win in Vancouver…
Thor Heyerdahl
@Yutsano: If you had, hordes of Canadians would have nominated you for the Order of Canada.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Thor Heyerdahl: earlier this evening, watching the Sharks-Ducks game, it was reported as a done deal that Iginla was going to Boston.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: LOL, true. I also would love to ask them, like…okay, you see the polls, and even they have to admit that support has increased since people started polling on it. So…do they really think that all of a sudden, it’s going to reverse? That instead of the increase in support continuing, it’s going to go the other way and either a bunch of people who now support equality will go HEY WAIT I TAKE IT BACK or the next generation of young people – who overwhelmingly support gay rights – are going to magically turn wingnut on it when they reach voting age?
Yeah. Nice fantasy world you got there, guys.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: if it’s available online, tonight’s Lawrence O’Donnell show had some unintentionally hilarious commentary from Mike Huckabee on just this subject.
Thor Heyerdahl
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Stenography is not just for the Whitehouse press corpse. Too many NHL reporters didn’t check all their sources about that “trade”.
Sly
@burnspbesq:
When he no longer had to win the approval of a majority of voters in Georgia’s 7th District in order to keep his job.
He became a Republican again in 2011, around the same time he became a lawyer for “Baby Doc” Duvalier, presumably in order to support Duvalier’s individual right to steal millions from his fellow Haitians.
Irish Steel
14 hours of Bach for .99 cents!
For those who dig that kind of thing.
MikeJ
@Irish Steel: I only like his early stuff, before he sold out.
Yutsano
@Thor Heyerdahl: Unfortunately the only alternative would have been Layton, and I think he knew he was already on the losing end of his fight at election time. Don’t make me mention Ignatieff. The man turns my stomach.
@Irish Steel: All of them, Charlie?
/music nerd
Irish Steel
@MikeJ: I’ve got some of his early splits with GF Handel.
@Yutsano: It’s been downloading steadily for the past 45 min.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Oh man. I don’t know if I could take that.
Amir Khalid
Wait. “Malay” is an antiquated racial term? Three out of five Malaysians, including me, identify as Malay. So do nine out of ten Indonesians.
Another Halocene Human
@Foregone Conclusion: that was not bottom up, dude
Another Halocene Human
@Citizen Alan: Wow, so that’s what it was. (they were a solid alliance by 1980) And that’s why GOP candidates always, always spoke at BJU. Wow.
It just always comes back to white supremacy. Fucking Nazis.
WereBear
For an African-American living in Virginia (and whose ancestors probably arrived prior to 1800) — yes.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Amir Khalid:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
– The trial judge in the original criminal trial in Loving, Leon M. Bazile
I suspect it was a general shorthand for “them yeller people who are a different kind of yeller”.
WereBear
And yes, they are all wedge issues, but I’ve come to see such things as RAGE issues; we have an irrational segment of the population who rages precisely because the way they think makes no sense. They cannot justify it, even to themselves, but they rationalize and make up excuses and drop into spittle-flicked screaming when pressed.
It’s wrong and they know it. I can only assume they have some kind of deep-seated psychological problem, and this is how they are expressing it.
Quite cynical of the GOP to play to this rage for votes; but I don’t think they can sneak away again without some consequence. As the discussion about birthers covered, down-thread: they own the nutters now.
WereBear
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: That’s hysterical… and not in a funny way.
Growing up with Southern attitudes, I also did not encounter much diversity until I got old enough to have a paper route. I’ll never forget biking away from a house where I just collected the monthly fee from an Asian wife of a white guy in the service. Both nice people.
I realized I’d been taught that such a marriage was “okay” but that if one of them had been white, and the other black, it was not. And it sank in; that this distinction made no sense whatsoever.
Anyway, I was trying to get at the fact that when the “races” encounter each other, they tend to marry. Surely that was what God intended!
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
Here in the USA, at least in the northeast, it was a “polite” synonym for ‘Creole’, or the apartheid-era South African ‘Coloured’ — used for mixed-race individuals who didn’t look too African. Even in the 1960s, it was the sort of word our grandparents used, but our parents considered obsolete. I vaguely remember some of my dad’s high school textbooks, from the 1930s, referring to the ‘fifth race‘, which was always about political power more than actual ethnography. The Wikipedia entry includes some unpleasant details about the legal applications at the time.
Joey Maloney
@burnspbesq:
He’s a saucy little octoroon, isn’t he? Bless his high-yalla heart.
Debbie(aussie)
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Wow! So why did god allow the ‘mixing’? Why did he make man curious and interested in the world around them and over the next hill/sea/ocean?
raven
@Debbie(aussie): My friends in Australia are hoping to be able to come home if their marriage is recognized.
Schlemizel
@Anne Laurie:
I have never heard of that before. Could it have been regional? There was actually an influx of a small group of Malaysian immigrants to the Twin Cities in the very late 50’s and I never hear the term used in a derogatory manner. Thats so odd.
Cermet
On this issue the thugs are losers and know it. I know a 76 year old married white male who is fiercely pro-thug on all issues except, of course, gay marriage. He will believe any stupid made up shit the thugs feed him but when it comes to gay people, he see’s only fellow good people who should not only marry but be allowed to raise children and have full legal/economic rights.
He, while a minority among older thugs, still make up a not too insignificant group in that party that carry a lot of weight. That is why more and more thugs in office are changing their tune and there is little chance of any significant backlash against the court if it rules against DOMA; even if it declares gays can gain federal benefits when married in States that allow it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Debbie(aussie):
There you go again, applying Satan’s critical thinking skills to the issue.
She’s a witch! Burn her!
Patricia Kayden
@Matt McIrvin: Whoa on Bob Barr! Just shows how times have changed.
Ramalama
@Thor Heyerdahl: Canucks also tend to dress way cooler too (at least in Montreal) *and* (special bonus) it seems as if every other woodsman here in the mountains an hour away can play the most awesome flamenco guitar. Bar-b-cue after bar-b-cue my training as a catholic school mass playa was put to total shame by seemingly countless gruffians whose piglet sized digits ran up and down the frets. Sigh.
Ramalama
Listening yet again to the side defending D’ohMa I am struck by how clingy they are to defending the term marriage, as in don’t mess with the word.
And yet they tend to be the same herd who moan about political correctness, incorrectly, if say someone includes the term ‘she’ along with ‘he’ when mentioning a person in general. Another word. Or African-American. Or Latino. And so on. God created heaven and sheaven, so get with the program, folks!
WereBear
@Ramalama: It takes a variety of factors to become good at anything!
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121114-gladwells-10000-hour-rule-myth
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Foregone Conclusion: Um, I was in the middle of that in the 70s and early 80s. (Grew up among them, had kin working for the Convention HQ, I worked temp jobs there off and on.) The fundies were in the middle of the steeplejacking process at the time. The Southern Baptists were quite often racist assholes, but there was still a strong strain of self-detemination among the membership. I well remember the horror that greeted the first fundie convention president.
Debbie(aussie)
@raven:
I would be so very happy for them :)
Debbie(aussie)
@Villago Delenda Est:
:)
Xenos
There seems to be a coordinated rebunking campaign going on. I have not heard the procreation argument being made in years, and sure enough it is being repeated all over again. Same thing with the discredited study about children in gay households having bad prospects.
I even wandered over to Politico and found that the comment section is flooded with hate speech about the gay. I guess this is what winning looks like, but it sure can be ugly.
the Conster
I knew the anti-gay had lost when I read the decision in the Goodridge v. Massachusetts case. I was working at a big law firm in Boston when the decision came out, and lawyers being lawyers, had a lot to say about it. One of the senior litigators in a firm wide email solicited suggestions about where the flaws were in the opinion – possible legal footholds that would give the antis good ammunition to keep fighting – and not one lawyer was able to provide a compelling legal counter argument. I knew then it was just a matter of time, because right is right, and there was a ratchet effect. The antis knew they lost the second it became clear that there was no effect on anyone else the day after two same sex people got married.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: Barr’s current opposition seems to be just to Section 3, and on state’s-rights grounds, rather than out of any advocacy of gay rights.
Ramalama
@WereBear: Thanks for that. I liked Gladwell when he told a story on the Moth podcast but have not really liked his writing.
liberal
@Foregone Conclusion:
IMHO, this is a very interesting question from a political science point of view, and moreover an important question for those of us who don’t want our country to go down the tubes. I don’t really have an opinion on bottom-up vs top-down.
The Wash Post had a series on the change in the NRA in the 1970s. The implication was that it happened bottom-up, that pro-gun ideology just appeared out of nowhere.
That I find very difficult to believe. I can’t think of any plausible cause except that gun/ammo manufacturers got it in their heads that this would be a great long-term way to gin up revenues.
Yes, I know that people, particularly males, love guns, but it’s not like most people (particulary rural ones) couldn’t get access to guns previously.
Ben Grimm
@Irish Steel:
You missed a golden opportunity to use “Baby Got Bach.”
keestadoll
@Ramalama: “Marriage: a civically codified means of securing/exchanging property between two families.” >>>> (definition evolves)>>>> we now call that “divorce.”
RaflW
@Alison:
I did see last year that the divorce rate is declining slightly in Massachusetts. So blame that on the gays.
gelfling545
@Debbie(aussie): It’s always the same old argument, whatever the topic.
– God intended it to be that way.
– Well, how do you know he doesn’t intend it to this way now?
– Because mumble mumble mumble.
If one believes in a deity, claiming to know it’s will seems like appalling conceit.
Chris
@liberal:
I think a lot of political changes start out bottom up, and then get latched onto by the people at the top when they see that it’s working.
The revival of Gilded Age economic royalism after the New Deal is one example. Originally it didn’t start among the 1%, but among small and medium sized businesses that were having trouble dealing with union demands and were basically Goldwater’s constituency. Wasn’t until big businesses noticed that those positions were viable again (if tied to white power) that they hopped on the bandwagon… and brought with them all the money the movement needed to become the behemoth it is now.
gene108
@liberal:
I’ve run across several hardcore right-wingers, who voted for Carter in 1976 for whatever reason and jumped on the Reagan bandwagon and haven’t voted Democratic since.
Whatever resentment came out of the 1970’s, amongst the evangelical community, it did have a groundswell of people, who were disillusioned with the politics of that era.
Reagan, Falwell, Robertson, et. al. tapped into that beautifully.
My educated guess is the 1970’s were the first step in dismantling the Leave it to Beaver view of America, where everyone knew their place and government enforced the status quo.
Religious identification, rising divorce rates, high inflation, Watergate and an up and down economy shocked the sensibilities of a lot of conservative folks that the America of their childhood wasn’t all that and a bag of chips.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Marriage rates have been declining too, though of course same-sex marriage had not a damn thing to do with it (except for creating a temporary bump from pent-up demand when it was legalized).
When people throw around state-by-state marriage rates or divorce rates to prove something about red vs. blue states, it’s usually a bit of a shell game one way or the other, because higher marriage rates and higher divorce rates tend to go hand in hand. The real difference is between places where people tend to marry young (and divorce and remarry a lot), and places where there’s a lot of cohabitation and delaying of first marriage (and married couples are consequently more committed, and divorce rates are low). There are a few exceptions, one or two states in the upper Midwest where marriage rates are high and divorce rates are low, but that’s the general pattern.
Chris
@gene108:
No one wants to talk about it anymore, but it’s my understanding that Carter was the most conservative Democrat to reach the White House in quite a while. I always assumed conservative Southern whites simply assumed he’d be one of them and got the shock of their lives when it turned out he wasn’t.
Pococurante
Heh. So Andrew Sullivan was consulted?
Sad_Dem
@Chris: I remember a lot of Republicans seriously hated Carter. He gave away the canal! Also, he brokered a peace deal and didn’t start a war. He lectured us about our thermostats, hinted strongly at ending the drug war, and he insisted on an integrated church. He alienated the righties big time, and yes, I think that he was a wealthy white landowning Southerner veteran just made it more unpleasant for them.