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Talking about morals, elections, conservaphobes

By CAL BEVERLY

So what is it that both sides in Election 2004 don’t get?

I’m definitely on one side of that understanding abyss, but here’s an attempt to shout across to the other side.

OK, the whole “morals” thing caught the Democrats with their pants down, or some other metaphor.

They look at each other with incomprehension reddening their eyes and exclaim, “But we have morals, too!”

And then they talk about the nation descending into a medieval theocracy where homosexuals are lynched and every child in America is forced to sing “Jesus Loves Me” before starting her lesson on creationism.

Guys, guys, you have hyperventilated yourselves out into the realm of thin oxygen and emotion-driven reactions. You are beyond reason at this point.

Otherwise intelligent columnist Thomas Friedman opines that, post-Nov. 2, “Bushies live in a different America” than he. Come on, Tommy, get a grip.

Occasionally cogent AJC lefty Jay Bookman gurgles, “Now is the fall of our discontent,” coloring Bush’s modest victory with tragic shadows like a Cliff’s Notes’ Shakespeare.

Way-out AJC chief lefty Cynthia Tucker is reduced to spitting and sputtering and quoting Bible verses and thundering damnation upon homophobes. (Bible verses!)

Have these lefty-liberals taken leave of their senses? It was just an election. The U.S. Constitution remains in place. As do the U.S. Supreme Court and the Congress and the governments of the 50 states.

Not that much has changed. Really. You got through the past four years. You’ll make it for four more, probably with little to no bloodshed on your parts.

So let’s all take a deep breath.

Herewith, my humble take on stuff.

My first impression is the remarkable contempt openly expressed by many liberals for a conservative point of view. I think many lefties have moved past competition into a dark hatred of many American and religious traditions.

Simply put, the tone I see and hear in many liberals’ comments about the GOP and the election results leaves me with the unmistakable feeling that not just my beliefs are beneath their contempt but that they literally despise ME and all conservatives like me.

Sometimes accused of hating our opponents, we conservatives now are receiving a liberal dose of hatred back from the lefties who espouse extreme tolerance and ultimate live-and-let-live.

Do we deserve hate from the Left? I leave it to you to examine the conundrum of the Left as haters.

Yep. Sure seems like hate to me. I’m inventing a corollary term to homophobic: Call it conservaphobia.

Conservaphobes are those increasing numbers of liberal-left folks, and multitudes of gays, who viscerally condemn any who cling to traditional religious beliefs and traditional American values.

Cynthia and Jay and Tommy Friedman are pure-blue conservaphobes. For them, there is little to like and much to despise in 59,459,765 of us.

Now that’s a lot of perfectly good folks to despise. That fact that we are a clear majority of voters in the U.S.A. is of little consequence to the feelings of many lefties.

We’re just all benighted, unenlightened, dumb, homophobic, hateful, clueless sheep being led to Karl Rove’s Halliburton-managed slaughter. All 59.45 million of us.

Cynthia, Jay, Tommy, guys, please. Give us a little break here.

How is it that you don’t understand that gay marriage is not the bright, shining symbol of civil rights that many lefties posit it, like a given in geometry.

Opposition to homosexual marriage is not a new bigotry or a recently discovered phenomenon. This moral position is as old as the Christian faith, the Jewish Talmud, the Islamic Koran. The marriage of a man and a woman (only!) represents a bedrock belief of Western civilization.

You have to hold a high opinion of your own elite values (without any historical grounding) to think that your Johnny-come-lately radicalism on transforming the venerable institution of marriage into an open-sex affair should just be swallowed whole by the entire nation without even a token dispute.

In 11 states, vast majorities said we like marriage just like it always has been, thank you very much. We don’t want a change.

Folk on the Left, you and we on the Right disagree on gay marriage. We disagree on abortion as an absolute right. We disagree that the U.S. should come begging hat in hand to France and Germany and old Europe for their approval of our defensive response after another 9-11.

We just disagree. We don’t hate you. We don’t hate gays. We simply refuse to approve.

That’s not hate. That’s not phobia. That’s just differing world-views. [For a well-argued take on world-view, see the letter on this page.]

So far it is the majority view in this country. The world goes on as it always has. The only thing new is that a few of your elite envelope-pushers got in our faces and forced the majority of us in this election to say, unequivocally but as always, “NO.”

The answer to you conservaphobes is “NO.” Get over it. In the words of that famous Democratic Web site and former president, “Move on.”



Bush won; so hold him accountable

By MICHAEL BOYLAN

If you are expecting a liberal lambasting of last week’s election results, you won’t find it here.

Oh, I’m disappointed and it definitely didn’t go the way I thought it would, but life goes on.

Now, I am just urging (pleading, begging) for the media and the American public to start holding President Bush and his administration accountable. Remember all of his promises and get rightfully upset if (and when) he breaks them.

This should be done for all politicians because the American public tends to have short and selective memories. A politician’s job is to run this country according to the demands of their constituency and we elect them based on what they promise to do for us. If we give them a free pass, we get exactly what we deserve.

For instance, when viewing Bush’s campaign promises from 2000, we find that while he satisfied some of his promises such as cutting taxes and creating federal standards for education, he broke others such as balancing the budget, reforming Social Security and the tax code and using our troops for nation building.

I realize that the events of Sept. 11 changed the political landscape, forcing some issues to the back burner and pushing new issues to the front, but all a politician has to go on is his word and a lot of us don’t place much credence in the President’s word right now.

In the days after the election, we heard the President say that he has earned political capital and he is ready to spend it.

OK, and what would he like to spend it on? Why, reforming Social Security and reforming the tax code are some of the issues, as is balancing the budget. Wow, same stuff as four years ago.

I understand that partisanship may have helped slow the process down in the last four years, but now, with a Republican-controlled congress, that should no longer serve as an excuse.

It’s not going to be an easy four years and Bush doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected after this term, but there are major things that he will have to deal with, beginning with the war in Iraq and the general problems in the Middle East.

Didn’t it seem like the minute the election was decided, Yasser Arafat went into a coma?

Arafat isn’t long for this world and while no one can really say for sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, his death will have major ramifications in the Middle East and the war on terrorism.

Not to mention, we have the January elections in Iraq where Bush has promised 125,000 Iraqi troops to be fully trained and ready to go, though that number seems very optimistic.

In fact, word is that some U.S. troops’ tours in Iraq are being extended, while other troops that are stateside will have to go back to Iraq early to help keep the peace during the elections.

Bush will then have to deal with Iran continuing work on their nuclear power plant, North Korea continuing to make nuclear weapons, continuing to hunt down Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders and reforming our intelligence system so we don’t mistakenly go to war with a country without weapons of mass destruction or fall asleep at the switch if terrorists decide to attack us on our soil again.

Bush has said that doing these things won’t be easy, adding, “if they were, they would have already been done.”

Well, you’ve been re-hired, Mr. President, so put your nose to the grindstone and get to work.

We’ll be watching.

Election 2004 is over; now what?

By MONROE ROARK

Here are one voter’s observations, after more than three hours in line Nov. 2 (in Henry County) and watching as little national news coverage that night as I could get away with:

• Thankfully, enough Americans last week sifted through the spin and realized the truth: That the most important job for our president is to protect this nation from the threats to its safety that now exist in the form of international terrorism, and that George W. Bush is the best man for that job right now. Has he done everything right the past four years? No. But everyone knows where he stands, and he has performed honorably thus far.

The news that foreigners, specifically Europeans, overwhelmingly favored John Kerry should speak volumes. Those same people have gone on record as saying they are in favor of a weaker United States. Connect the dots. Of the two major candidates, Bush is the one who would not seek the approval of the entire world before protecting our country from whatever lurks beyond its borders.

And for all of you who are still blabbering about “Bush lied” or “No WMDs,” you either aren’t paying any attention to the news and don’t know any better, or you do know better and just keep talking about it anyway. I’m not sure which is more dangerous.

• Speaking of the war on terror, any chance of a military draft went away with Kerry’s defeat. Now many of you who have heard the fearmongering of recent months thought that Bush would be bringing back the draft. That’s what listening to the mainstream media and liberal “get out the vote” groups, without any infusion of common sense, will get you.

Think about it. John Kerry has shown for more than 30 years his contempt for the American military, with his antiwar activism in the 1970s and his Senate voting record since 1984, and throughout 2004 our current soldiers have heard him repeatedly undermine their efforts in Iraq. A Kerry victory would have prompted the largest mass exodus from active military service in history. Then he would have no choice but to reinstate the draft, which some in his party are more than happy to help him with. After all, that has already been attempted in the U.S. House this year, by Democrats, and it failed miserably.

• On the domestic front, the Bush administration needs to shift gears in a major way. The tax cuts are not the problem; they need to be permanent. The problem is spending, and Bush has shown in four years that he can spend money and expand government with the best of them.

One rumor that circulated a few months ago had the second Bush term focusing on a major tax system overhaul, with possible elimination of the IRS and serious consideration of a national sales tax. With the Republican numbers in both houses of Congress, maybe it’s an idea whose time has come. We can only hope.

• Apparently, voters in a number of states still believe that marriage is not an institution to be twisted and misshapen to fit the whims of a particular generation. That’s a promising sign.

People who attempt to make the “civil rights” and “discrimination” arguments when backing same-sex marriage have no concept of what those terms mean or what the Constitution says. No one is discriminated against when marriage is defined as a man and a woman. I can’t marry a man, and neither can you if you’re a man. Likewise, all women are barred from marrying other women. It’s a level playing field. You may not like it, but it’s certainly not discrimination.

A lot of gays and lesbians would like to see better benefits from employers that are sometimes only available to legal spouses, particularly when it comes to health care coverage. But that issue speaks more to the health care system in general, and health care coverage for everybody would be much more affordable if the federal government got out of the way. If each person could buy his or her own health coverage at an affordable price, without regard to who your employer is, your marital status wouldn’t matter.

So while I’m not a lawyer, I’m not sure how anyone is going to challenge the constitutionality of the marriage referendums passed in 11 states Nov. 2. I would prefer it be a matter for each individual state. But some of our federal courts are, unfortunately, capable of anything.

• One final thing: Those guys with the funny wigs and crazy clothes in the late 1700s who came up with the Electoral College? They were geniuses.

Voters 13, gay marriage 0; now what?

By DR. WARREN THROCKMORTON

Seven out of 10 voters in 13 states have rejected same sex marriage in 2004. Every state that has put the issue before voters has added a prohibition on same sex marriage to the state constitution. What can we expect now from advocates of same sex unions?

Immediately following the 2004 election, pundits seized upon exit polling showing record turnouts among rural voters and evangelicals. Clearly social issues mattered to people and the one issue that seemed to galvanize these voters most was marriage.

Specifically, people in 11 states on Nov. 2, in addition to Missouri and Louisiana in the past several months, were able to opine with votes about the wisdom of banning gay marriage via their state constitutions. Overwhelmingly, voters felt such bans a wise move. But what about those who have championed gay marriage?

Expect them to head to the courts. And judging from the immediate reaction of gay political groups, the courts will be busier than ever.

The appeal to the courts will be framed in terms of civil rights denied by the majority. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said in a press release, “The results underscore why we have a Bill of Rights, because it is always wrong to put basic rights up to a popular vote. In fact, even today, 213 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified, it is doubtful Americans could win our freedoms of speech, press and religion at the ballot box.”

In other words, if most people will not vote to redefine marriage, we will file lawsuits until we win.

This strategy may well produce considerable chaos over the near term. Already, the Louisiana vote has met judicial challenge.

Most if not all of the states recently amending their constitutions to make marriage a solely man–woman event will face court challenges. Some may be decided in favor of the gay marriage advocates and some in the direction of the will of the people.

Most readers know where this is all heading. It looks increasingly clear that the matter will not be finally adjudicated until we reach the Supreme Court.

Handicapping this issue is difficult at best. Conventional wisdom is that President Bush may have opportunity to appoint justices that may be less disposed to viewing same sex marriage as a “basic right.”

As the elder George Bush appointee Justice David Souter demonstrates, however, not all conservative appointments render conservative jurisprudence.

If the Supreme Court sides with the states on this matter, it may take awhile but I suspect all states will eventually amend their constitutions to reflect traditional values.

However, if the Supreme Court finds a basic right for gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution, then where will that leave states and the voters who find traditional marriage to resonate best with their understanding of basic rights?

While the road would be long and circuitous, it may eventually lead back to the voter. A federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman will likely take on urgency at that point.

If the Congress passes a federal amendment, then three-fourths of state legislatures must also ratify the amendment for it to become part of the constitution.

While not a complete full circle, this issue then comes back to the states where voters can express their preferences up close and personal to their state legislators.

Given the current lopsided victories for traditional marriage, one does not need to be politically savvy to speculate that politicians, beholden to voters as they are, will be inclined to vote the will of the people.

What then will be the strategy of gay political groups?

As noted, the courts will be tied up with this matter in the near term. And in the court of popular opinion, we can expect a prolonged media effort and much rhetoric from such groups and a sympathetic press about the crux of the issue being one of civil rights for the class of people known as homosexual.

More emphasis than ever will be focused on studies that purport to demonstrate a genetic determination for sexual attraction, thus leading to claims of discrimination directed at this group.

Expect protracted legal, media and legislative battles. A generation of children will grow up with this issue.

When it’s all over, if traditional marriage finally prevails, I expect we will look back and say the election of 2004 was a turning point in the effort to maintain marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

[Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D., is director of college counseling and associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. His columns have been published in over 50 newspapers and he is the producer of the documentary, “I Do Exist,” concerning change of sexual identity (www.idoexist.com).]

Rightwingconservativechristian...

By EARL TILFORD

Forty-four years ago, at the age of 13, I became “politically aware” while reading Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative.”

Four years later, as I entered college, Goldwater, accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president, declared that extremism in defense of liberty was no vice.

Subsequently, Democrats depicted Goldwater as a right-wing extremist anxious to expand the war in Vietnam and get Americans moving in their covered wagons down those dusty roads to Sunday campground meetings.

Consequently, Lyndon Johnson easily won the 1964 election, then, within three months of his inauguration, began expanding both the war in Vietnam and the welfare state.

Americans generally fall in the middle of the political spectrum. Although many conservative Republicans lament that the political center skews too far to the left, while their Democratic counterparts believe America is tilted too far to the right, most voters drive down the middle of the road.

The Democratic Left, however, wearing the mantle “progressive,” often depicts their Republican opponents as a monolithic monstrosity, that most fearsome of political beasts, the dreaded “Rightwingconservativechristianfundamentalist.”

To the consternation of many Americans living west of Death Valley and east of the Monongahela River, this election turned on moral values.

According to CNN polls, 22 percent of voters stated that moral values were their primary concern while 20 percent named the economy and jobs, 19 percent picked terrorism with 15 percent citing the war in Iraq and 8 percent selecting health care concerns.

Although Republicans garnered significant numbers of voters among each of those categories, 80 percent of those who believed this election was primarily about cultural issues voted for President Bush.

Indeed, Senator Kerry was more right than he knew when he asserted Americans were concerned “about the direction this nation is heading.”

The focus on cultural issues also was reflected in the average 71 percent approval rate of constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in the 11 states where they appeared on the ballot.

Additionally, 65 percent of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring parental notification prior to a minor having an abortion.

Even in the People’s Republic of Berkeley a voter initiative calling for police leniency toward criminal prostitution failed by a two-to-one margin.

Many on the Left have characterized this election as “turning back the clock.” Some tremble in fear of that Rightwingconservativechristianfundametnalist beast poised to eliminate “a woman’s right to choose,” reintroduce the draft, widen what already is Global War on Terror, use the Patriot Act to institute a police state and criminalize homosexuality.

In reality, the election was decided not by the extreme right but by a majority of middle-of-the road voters who work for a living, marry the opposite sex, support national sovereignty and, as astonishing as it may seem to residents of San Francisco and Greenwich Village, believe in God.

Indeed, many of those who supported John Kerry hold approximately those same values. Could it be the dreaded Rightwingconservativechristianfundamentalist beast dwells mostly in the minds of radicals who dwell in a parallel universe where men marry men and the cultural epicenter is Hollywood?

Blinded by ideology, the extreme Left, which unlike the extreme right occupies a much wider portion of its host political party, cannot see that most Americans believe marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman, abortion, especially in the third trimester, is reprehensible, and that U.S. national sovereignty should focus on America’s vital national security interests, not those of the United Nations, France or Germany.

Republicans made gains among blacks, Hispanics, and women despite the fact that Democratic programs have a greater appeal to those constituencies.

What Democrats missed is that a significant number of blacks believe that homosexuality is morally objectionable and (dare I say it?) sinful.

Hispanics generally hold strong family values and most, being Roman Catholic, oppose abortion. And while many people living west of Death Valley and east of the Monongahela River find it incomprehensible, most women prefer men who prefer women to men.

Could it be that this is a country of God-fearing, Bible-reading, SUV-driving and opposite sex-loving Americans?

Whodathunkit? For starters, the majority of the electorate.

[Dr. Earl H. Tilford is a professor of history at Grove City (Penn.) College and a fellow with The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He has authored three books on the Vietnam War and co-edited a book on Operation Desert Storm. Contact him at ehtilford@gcc.edu.]

Miss Virgie gives away a jam jar

By RONDA RICH

Miss Virgie is at it again. My beloved diva mentor, who lives across the country in Carson City, Nev., just surprised me with a special delivery box that took a bit of maneuvering to get in the front door.

Like a child savoring those Christmas packages, I brought it in but wouldn’t open it until my morning chores were out of the way. By the time I broke into it, I was literally shivering with anticipation.

You’ve met Miss Virgie before but I’ll refresh your memory. She is a divine example of Southern womanhood, having been raised properly in Pascagoula, Miss., to believe in gracious hospitality, handwritten thank-you notes, precise manners and sweet tea. She flawlessly practices the art of being a perfect lady and presides solemnly over my attempt at it.

Miss Virgie, thankfully for me, has no children. So, I am the sole benefactor of her wealth of knowledge, wisdom and largesse of incredible gifts.

In recent months, Miss Virgie’s health has sputtered a bit. She has been ailing with palpitations of the heart more serious than those normally suffered by noble, genteel Southern ladies.

“I am in a delicate condition,” she reported when I phoned to check on her after a hospital stay. “But my precious, darling husband is taking good care of me. This is only momentary frailty.”

She’s quite a card, that one. Like all Southerners, she appreciates good humor even when aimed her way.

“Well, just make certain that your will is current,” I teased. “And remember: you can leave your millions to charity but leave all your silver to me.”

“Darlin’ girl, you are too much!” she howled.

I’m not really kidding. See, Miss Virgie is my only hope at inheriting substantial pieces of silver. The only silver that Mama owns is a few pieces of costume jewelry and those are beginning to turn green.

Miss Virgie, though, has enough silver to underwrite a significant part of the national debt. This is in addition to a storeroom filled with china, dazzling crystal, Irish linens and rare works of art. Perhaps now you’ll understand why a package from Miss Virgie is always exciting at my house.

I rummaged through the bubble wrap and Styrofoam pieces to pull out a crystal tray, a silver two-tiered dish, two silver trays, a silver candelabra and an antique crystal jam jar with a silver lid.

The jam jar came with its own extensive biography written in Miss Virgie’s lilting Mississippi language.

Mississippians are unequaled, even in a region renowned for its storytelling, in their ability to mesmerize with language. This is a skill that Miss Virgie practices well.

For three pages, she waxed eloquently on the history of the jam jar, which is close to a hundred years old, and how it was given to her in a special way.

“I have always used this on the table for every tea I have given since I received it. But something is telling me that it is time to pass it on,” she concluded. I’m glad that “something” directed her to give it to me.

While Miss Virgie carefully explained each item in the box and how she had used each, she failed to mention the gift carefully enshrined in a sealed plastic bag and placed on top of the others. Being the well-bred Southern lady she is, I am certain she saw no need for explanation.

They reminded me of all the Easters of my childhood. A crisp pair of three-quarter length white gloves that fit perfectly.

They, however, don’t have a story because they’re brand new. It will be up to me to write their biography.

[Ronda Rich is the author of “What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should)” and “My Life In The Pits.” She lives in Gainesville, Ga.]