BigBadBrian
11-17-2004, 08:51 AM
Democrats out of step with American voters
Armstrong Williams
November 16, 2004
The Democrats are out of step with America and, if they want to be a long-term, stable governing body, that is going to have to change. Just ask the party's leading populist, President Clinton. He was waddling all over town in the months leading up to the election, imploring party leaders to abandon their support of a gay marriage amendment.
Clinton knew that the vast majority of Americans did not support the homosexual agenda. He knew that many voters would vote Republican solely on that issue. And like all great populists, Clinton knew that in a democracy, political leaders have to ingrain themselves in the popular culture. It's how leaders draw their legitimacy as a voice for the people. He could also see that the Democrats were on the verge of losing that legitimacy with their stubborn support of a gay marriage amendment.
Plainly, gay marriage is not an issue that Americans support. Despite the rhetoric that you hear from the homosexual Cosa Nostra, the lack of support for the gay marriage amendment has nothing to do with prejudice. It's not about trying to dictate to adults what they should do in the privacy of their own homes. Let's be clear about that. Opposition to the gay marriage amendment isn't about disallowing homosexuals the same basic rights we extend to everyone else. It is about recognizing that marriage between man and woman is the bedrock of our society. It is about the citizens of this country saying, en masse, that they are unwilling to deconstruct certain basic and essential norms in our culture and society.
Rightly so. Heterosexual marriage is deeply ingrained in our Western value system. To abruptly break from those values would have a disastrous effect on our society. For starters, it would speed along the breakdown of family and society. Pushing the homosexual agenda into the mainstream would also inevitably legitimize homosexual adoption. This is truly frightening. A child requires emotional consistency, gender stability and self-esteem. To abruptly break with social conventions by placing children in homosexual households would create for these children the sort of gender confusion and social scrutiny that ignites a lifetime of emotional turmoil. I am unwilling to martyr a generation of children just to make a political statement about homosexual rights. Nor am I willing to trash the most fundamental values of our culture. Most Americans feel the same.
Somehow, though, the Democrats don't get this. They hang on to the gay marriage amendment with mind-numbing intransigence. They say that homosexual unions cannot be disallowed simply because the state deems it immoral. Well guess what, the state can enforce a moral consensus. Otherwise this would be a land where pornography, drugs and prostitution would be unregulated, where women would be allowed to have abortions at any time during their pregnancy. If you accept that the state cannot enforce shared moral values, then you're saying that the state has no voice in any of these issues. Obviously, that's just not the case.
Ironically, homosexual unions aren't even a mainstream issue for the Democratic Party. Their chief concerns are welfare and a strong national government. Yet, if you ask voters what the Democrats are all about, they often say that the Democrats are about gay rights, separation of church and state and making our culture more relativistic. The Democrats inflexibility on homosexual unions has alienated voters.
And this is what President Clinton was trying to tell the Democrats in the months leading up to the election: if you have a political party that is viewed as fundamentally hostile to American culture and values, you're not interested in listening to them. The Democrats will never be a long-term, stable governing body until they get that through their heads.
Armstrong Williams
November 16, 2004
The Democrats are out of step with America and, if they want to be a long-term, stable governing body, that is going to have to change. Just ask the party's leading populist, President Clinton. He was waddling all over town in the months leading up to the election, imploring party leaders to abandon their support of a gay marriage amendment.
Clinton knew that the vast majority of Americans did not support the homosexual agenda. He knew that many voters would vote Republican solely on that issue. And like all great populists, Clinton knew that in a democracy, political leaders have to ingrain themselves in the popular culture. It's how leaders draw their legitimacy as a voice for the people. He could also see that the Democrats were on the verge of losing that legitimacy with their stubborn support of a gay marriage amendment.
Plainly, gay marriage is not an issue that Americans support. Despite the rhetoric that you hear from the homosexual Cosa Nostra, the lack of support for the gay marriage amendment has nothing to do with prejudice. It's not about trying to dictate to adults what they should do in the privacy of their own homes. Let's be clear about that. Opposition to the gay marriage amendment isn't about disallowing homosexuals the same basic rights we extend to everyone else. It is about recognizing that marriage between man and woman is the bedrock of our society. It is about the citizens of this country saying, en masse, that they are unwilling to deconstruct certain basic and essential norms in our culture and society.
Rightly so. Heterosexual marriage is deeply ingrained in our Western value system. To abruptly break from those values would have a disastrous effect on our society. For starters, it would speed along the breakdown of family and society. Pushing the homosexual agenda into the mainstream would also inevitably legitimize homosexual adoption. This is truly frightening. A child requires emotional consistency, gender stability and self-esteem. To abruptly break with social conventions by placing children in homosexual households would create for these children the sort of gender confusion and social scrutiny that ignites a lifetime of emotional turmoil. I am unwilling to martyr a generation of children just to make a political statement about homosexual rights. Nor am I willing to trash the most fundamental values of our culture. Most Americans feel the same.
Somehow, though, the Democrats don't get this. They hang on to the gay marriage amendment with mind-numbing intransigence. They say that homosexual unions cannot be disallowed simply because the state deems it immoral. Well guess what, the state can enforce a moral consensus. Otherwise this would be a land where pornography, drugs and prostitution would be unregulated, where women would be allowed to have abortions at any time during their pregnancy. If you accept that the state cannot enforce shared moral values, then you're saying that the state has no voice in any of these issues. Obviously, that's just not the case.
Ironically, homosexual unions aren't even a mainstream issue for the Democratic Party. Their chief concerns are welfare and a strong national government. Yet, if you ask voters what the Democrats are all about, they often say that the Democrats are about gay rights, separation of church and state and making our culture more relativistic. The Democrats inflexibility on homosexual unions has alienated voters.
And this is what President Clinton was trying to tell the Democrats in the months leading up to the election: if you have a political party that is viewed as fundamentally hostile to American culture and values, you're not interested in listening to them. The Democrats will never be a long-term, stable governing body until they get that through their heads.