David Vitter And Larry Craig Get Married

…wait, that’s not what happened. It’s just that accused prostitute visitor David Vitter and bathroom sex pursuing Larry Craig actually have had the audacity to reintroduce The Federal Marriage Amendment, a piece of horseshit legislation designed to prevent the gheys from marryin anywheres! (That link isn’t working. Keep clicking it. Maybe that will help.)

Honestly, the audacity of the Republican Party these days. These jackasses will lecture anybody about anything while continuing to do precisely those things within their own homes…or brothels…or public bathrooms. At what point does shame come into play? At what point does somebody say, “Maybe I shouldn’t lecture other people about their alleged moral failings when I have actual moral failings of my own?”

Surely people will realize the hackitude of the Republican Party, getting involved in these shenanigans despite their own moral bankruptcy. Surely this will drive Christians away. Or…you know…it won’t, because an awful lot of Christians are perfectly comfortable with this sort of out and out lunacy.

Oh Noes!!1!

I love LOLcats, even if I hate real cats. So sue me. Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what the Republican National Committee thinks it’s going to get sending me letters saying that my membership, which of course I never had, is almost up. Maybe it’s praying that I don’t remember my political affiliations, and think to myself, “Dammit, I knew I’d joined something. It must have been this outfit. Let me find my checkbook.”

If this is what American political organizing has stooped to, then no wonder it barely succeeds anymore. No wonder people are disengaged at historically high levels. No wonder people don’t care.

Obviously, the current electoral cycle is bringing out voters in what appear to be high numbers for today’s day and age. Whether or not they’ll compete with historical highs is something else altogether, but we ought to take progress wherever we can get it.

I’m currently engaged in a debate about marriage equality with some Christians who insist that if gays are allowed to marry, it is an act made against them as Christians. It simply isn’t conceivable that allowing for freedom of marriage does just that: allows for consenting adults to choose who they legally join. Rather, it is believed by these Christians than any attempt to legalize gay marriage is simultaneously an attempt to undermine Christianity. Ludicrous as this opinion may be, you almost can’t help but feel sorry for Christians so stupid. They, as we have all been, have been taught that anything they don’t personally like can be considered an attack upon them as a whole.

I learned the same lesson at the University of Massachusetts. “What? Somebody somewhere doesn’t agree with me? That’s xxx-ism!” The Christians have adopted this mindset too. “What? Somebody wants freedom to be extended to people that we claim to love but really hate? That’s anti-Christianism.”

One of the painful things about living in a multicultural society is that we have to be, yknow, multicultural, and that means not forcing everybody to follow along with whatever we believe. It means creating, and protecting, the marketplace of ideas, and letting the intellectual battles that ensue not spill out into legislation.

It seems clear that if opponents of something really want to get their way, then they ought to take responsibility for convincing people to go along with whatever they’re advocating. Christians who advocate keeping gay relationships as separate but equal entities are clearly doing so because they’re too lazy, bashful, or otherwise disengaged to approach gay people and preach to them about the alleged evil of their sin. Same goes for anti-abortion foes, who would be perfectly happy to see the practice outlawed and police take over for the responsibility of enforcing it.

Needless to say, we’re currently suffering a politics of the scapegoat. The Democrats and Republicans do it at equal speed, although the GOP has been better at scapegoating particular groups. It seems clear that it is ultimately a go nowhere strategy, which is why the party is desperately hoping that I’ve forgotten everything I ever believed in sending me that letter. Unfortunately for the RNC, it failed. Speaking of fail.