Two right-of-center columnists, Stephen Chapman and Cathy Young, both back marriage for all. I have to say that the best discussion right now is being held in conservative venues – where real diversity of opinion is actually present. Stanley Kurtz’s opposition to all marriage rights to gays is now tempered at National Review, for example, by more moderate voices, which is encouraging. But then you have quotes like this one, cited by Jonah as somehow valid:
Many social conservatives in America believe there is a God and a Holy Spirit and a Bible that condemns homosexuality as an abomination, and they will not be defeated.
What this quote reveals is something important about the religious right. Many simply do not acknowledge a need to make anything but religious arguments on this matter – or any other. They pick pieces of the Bible with which they agree (you won’t find many members of the religious right decrying usury or personal wealth) and then insist that they be reflected in the civil law. They see zero distinction between religion and politics. Zero. Can you imagine Jonah quoting a fundamentalist Muslim who simply asserted that “many social conservatives in America believe there is one God who is Allah and a Koran that says that women have no right to vote.” It’s politically meaningless, except as an endorsement of theocracy. Yet that is what parts of American conservatism are now reduced to: assertions of religious authority as indistinguishable from civil law. No wonder these theocrats are losing the argument. They haven’t even joined it.
The Dish 