Op-Ed The Conservative Case for Same-Sex Marriage

[JayQueer]

Ken Mehlman has written an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune speaking out against Minnesota's anti-gay marriage amendment. He argues that conservatives should support gay marriage because 1) it is about personal freedom, and 2) it encourages monogamy, commitment to others, responsibility, etc.

Here is an excerpt:

What freedom is more basic and personal than the right to marry the person you love?

If we are serious in our belief that every citizen is endowed by his or her creator with the right to pursue happiness, then how can this not include the freedom to marry? What could be more central to a person's happiness? And alternatively, if we want a smaller, less obtrusive government, shouldn't individuals and not politicians decide who they can marry?

Maximizing freedom isn't the only conservative value enhanced by allowing civil marriage for same-gender couples. It will promote stability, responsibility and commitment -- family values that we often encourage in public policy. Marriage encourages people to think beyond their own needs, to create loving households, to build a support network so people can be cared for in sickness, old age and hard times.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/173960281.html?refer=y


What do you think about about what he has written?

Please pass this editorial along to your conservative & Republican family members, colleagues, and friends.

 

[Rolyo85]

Thankfully, I have no deluded family members or friends who are Republican, but it's a nice piece. I hope it changes a few minds.

 

[White Eagle]

We can always hope for change, but I doubt seriously that this will ever happen.
Republicans only want to control what happens in the US.

 

[jackoroe]

The fact remains that Ted Olson and David Boies are going to be arguing for the right to gay marriage before SCOTUS at some point in the future. Olson was Solicitor General under Bush and a fierce conservative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Olson

So the argument that conservatives universally hate gay marriage really doesn't hold water.

 

[rareboy]

No one ever argues that all conservatives hate gay marriage.

It only seems to be the Republican party and the talibangelicals who nail the planks to the party platform who hate the idea so much.

The same people who hated the repeal of DADT.

 

[palbert]

Thankfully, I have no deluded family members or friends who are Republican, but it's a nice piece. I hope it changes a few minds.

What he said.

 

[Rolyo85]

Not all conservatives oppose gay marriage. REAL conservatives don't. The ones who label themselves "social conservatives" (PC for religious nutjob bigots) do, and those are the ones the GOP allows to dictate its course.

 

[Just_Believe18]

There is a difference between Conservatives and Republicans. Republicans are NOT Conservatives.

• Conservatives should believe in protecting the environment (Republican president Teddy Roosevelt, national hunting groups)
• Conservatives should believe in the use of contraception (to avoid abortions as much as possible)
• Conservatives should believe in a sufficient enough military to protect the United States (not an empire in the world)
• Conservatives should believe in marriage equality because it strengthens families and faith.
• Conservatives should believe in a tax system that does not benefit the rich, but strengthens the middle-class and working poor. Most conservatives are not wealthy.

These are just some examples, and as you can see, Republicans are NOT Conservatives.

 

[Stardreamer]

Ken Mehlman has written an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune speaking out against Minnesota's anti-gay marriage amendment. He argues that conservatives should support gay marriage because 1) it is about personal freedom, and 2) it encourages monogamy, commitment to others, responsibility, etc.

Here is an excerpt:




http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/173960281.html?refer=y


What do you think about about what he has written?

Please pass this editorial along to your conservative & Republican family members, colleagues, and friends.

It is what I've been saying for years and there is a small but growing number of conservative writers who support the thought also.

 

[Stardreamer]

The fact remains that Ted Olson and David Boies are going to be arguing for the right to gay marriage before SCOTUS at some point in the future. Olson was Solicitor General under Bush and a fierce conservative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Olson

So the argument that conservatives universally hate gay marriage really doesn't hold water.

The religious social conservatives are fighting a losing battle on the gay rights front, and the party leadership knows it too which is why you are hearing almost nothing about gay marriage in the current campaigns, they focusing on abortion where they are on more solid demographic grounds for stirring the social conservatives.

 

[Kulindahr]

Just_Believe and Rolyo have it right: Republicans (for the most part) aren't conservatives -- they're reactionaries. They have no program except to react to/against what others seek, no vision except to turn back the clock to some parallel universe imagined only by them to have been a golden era.

There are some areas where we could benefit by turning back the clock, but even in those they're reactionary; they don't want to backtrack step by step but to drive over a cliff doing it all at once. The fall may be fun, but the crash at the end only benefits the corrupt and anti-social (and anti-liberty, generally).

 

[rareboy]

Ken Mehlman is why several states HAVE anti gay marriage laws- he's the architect of the 2004 wedge issue Bush Campaign- the man is total scum! He has to do penance for 50 years to make a dent in the mess he created! JUDAS!!!!!!!!

Pretty much this.

I don't think that there will ever be a place for Mehlman in my heart.

He is not the person that should be speaking for this issue now.

I don't care that he's had a 'come to Jesus' moment on all of this. He still makes me want to puke.

 

[JB3]

There is a difference between Conservatives and Republicans. Republicans are NOT Conservatives.

• Conservatives should believe in protecting the environment (Republican president Teddy Roosevelt, national hunting groups)
• Conservatives should believe in the use of contraception (to avoid abortions as much as possible)
• Conservatives should believe in a sufficient enough military to protect the United States (not an empire in the world)
• Conservatives should believe in marriage equality because it strengthens families and faith.
• Conservatives should believe in a tax system that does not benefit the rich, but strengthens the middle-class and working poor. Most conservatives are not wealthy.

These are just some examples, and as you can see, Republicans are NOT Conservatives.

This. Any actual conservative, when asked about gay marriage, would give that reason. Ditto for every other bullet.

 

[bankside]

Yeah well David Frum already presented his excuses for embarrassing himself.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-27/...ility-marriage-hispanic-mothers?_s=PM:OPINION

If people like me had been right, we should have seen the American family become radically more unstable over the subsequent decade and a half.

Instead -- while American family stability has continued to deteriorate -- it has deteriorated much more slowly than it did in the 1970s and 1980s before same-sex marriage was ever seriously thought of.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yeah well David Frum already presented his excuses for embarrassing himself.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-27/...ility-marriage-hispanic-mothers?_s=PM:OPINION

I read that because I was interested in the excuses -- but I didn't find any. He's just flat out saying he was wrong.

 

[rareboy]

^ I'd like to think that Frum's Road to Damascus realization is the result of his Canadian side. Or it could just be simply facing up to the reality of politics.

Poor David. He has seen his glorious vision for a conservative America hijacked by social extremists and is one of the few, it seems, who realize that the Republicans are increasingly in a highly vulnerable position as they alienate more and more of the potential voters.