So in an interview with GQ, GOP leader Michael Steele said that abortion is an individual choice and that being gay is something you're born with - that you can't stop being gay any more than he can stop being black. These are perfectly rational positions, probably held by most Americans, but they are anathema to the right-wing Republican party majority. The vast majority of Republicans believe that abortion is murder and should be illegal, and that being gay is a 'lifestyle choice' that we should not endorse. The official platform has urged outlawing abortion for 30 years. Sarah Palin flubbed this one too - she said she would "counsel" a person to choose life. Choosing life means you have a choice. Being pro-life is not about choosing life, but about banning any other choice. Steele is also too dumb to know this. Perhaps he and Palin both represent many middle class Republicans who like the idea of being morally opposed to abortion and confuse that with being pro-life. The party base knows, though. They're going to lynch him (okay, they will call it something different, since he's black). They've already made him kiss Rush Limbaugh's drug-addict ass.
Either way, we get the spectacle of a man saying perfectly reasonable things being drummed out of the GOP by the far right. It's a reminder: the GOP has become too small and too small-minded to matter.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Michael Steele and GOP Fun
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 12:40 PM
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5 comments:
There's a hilarious video from SNL last weekend. In the skit Michael Steele trying to say reasonable things, but keeps getting zapped by an electrode Rush Limbaugh has implanted in his brain.
"that you can't stop being gay any more than he can stop being black. These are perfectly rational positions, probably held by most Americans, but they are anathema to the right-wing Republican party majority."
I can just hear my born again cousins saying "I don't object to people being attracted the same sex. I object to them acting on that temptation."
Of course by that logic, right wing republicans wouldn't object to black people being black - just so long as they have the good moral sense to be ashamed of themselves for being black and take steps to cover it up.
If your born-again cousins would say, "I don't object to people being attracted the same sex. I object to them acting on that temptation," then I would say that is a good start and we have made some progress as a society. They no longer consider homosexual feelings to be a sickness, which is a promising beginning.
By way of comparison, I suspect your cousins (and most folks) would still very much object to people being attracted sexually to small children, or to farm animals--whether they acted on those "temptations" or not. Those are still considered mental defects by most people, fair assessment or not.
It's so fun to watch the right go desperately pulling up any stakes of a bigger tent.
Dr. S. Your second line is more compatible with their view of homosexuality. They view it as something very similar to pedophilia.
Oh, and when I raised the issue of Republicans wanting black people to be ashamed of being black, I was only half joking.
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