Rick Santorum - The Christianist Candidate of Choice

Both polls and the chattering class on television news shows are noting a huge upsurge in Rick Santorum's ranking against Mitt Romney even as thrice married serial adulterer Newt Gingrich seems to be providentially spiraling downward to a hopefully hard landing. But is the lunatic Republican base simply gravitating toward Santorum simply because they have nowhere else to go - especially if the Christofascists refuse to vote for a Mormon? Frankly, a match up between Santorum and Obama in November could be the Christofascists' Waterloo and a gift to Obama. Absent some transformation that I don't see Santorum being capable of making, the man is too much of a religious extremist to do well in November. He even makes the delusional Chimperator George W. Bush look rational and like a relative moderate. Andrew Sullivan summarizes some of the analysis in these highlights:

Jesse Singal wonders how effective Romney's inevitable attacks on Santorum will be:

[A] lot of the old Santorum stuff about to get churned up, the most infamous of it his comparison of homosexuality to bestiality, is unlikely to bother conservative voters all that much. His views on social issues could make him a semi-poisonous general-election candidate, but in a primary — particularly a primary currently starring Romney? Less so.

Pete Spiliakos, who likes Santorum quite a bit, worries about his chances in the general election:

Take the whole women in combat thing. His point about group dynamics isn’t crazy, but he is just off. He just isn’t quick enough or disciplined enough to deflect these kinds of questions or make his point in an unalienating way. I don’t think the women in combat thing hurts him, but it is a warning. If Santorum is somehow the Republican nominee, he is going to get suckered into these kinds of culture war fights every couple of weeks. And this is Santorum being good. He isn’t that bright, he isn’t that articulate, and he can’t be fixed.

He is easily the politician most hostile to individual liberty on the right. He believes states have every right to ban contraception, all abortion, and any legal protections for gay couples. He disavows any secular, Enlightenent view of America's founding. For him, freedom only counts if you adhere to the current fundamentalist rigidity of the Benedict XVI church. I've cited this before, but here he is on freedom:

This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. . . . .

[H]e explicitly cites the bedroom as the place where big government can intervene. If you are not reproducing as the Vatican demands, legal penalties are in principle possible. There is no public-private distinction. His mentor, Robbie George, takes the view that in principle, the state also has the right to penalize masturbation with criminal penalties, a position flushed out of him in the Prop 2 trial in Colorado. The only reason the two would not actively prosecute gay couples for having sex or straight couples for using condoms is for prudential reasons: it's not practical. But in theory, they'd have the Catholic church's most reactionary elements dictating your freedoms.

If you believe in individual freedom, this country has no greater opponent than Rick Santorum. And for three years, the GOP has tried to tell us that the Tea Party was about extending freedom and ending debt rather than extending the power of Christianist Big Government. We know better now.

Santorum is a menace plain and simple. And if the GOP were delusional enough to make him the nominee, I suspect Obama could easily expose his extremism and his Christofascist desire to dictate the beliefs and morality that must be imposed on all citizens.

Gay Marriage & Marijuana - Why You Can't Stop Either One

In a column in Newsweek that no doubt is provocative to those on the far right, Jacob Weisberg looks at the inevitability of nationally recognized same sex marriage and changes in the nation's marijuana laws. He posits that society is changing and that this change dooms the efforts of conservatives in the long run to keep same sex couples as legal inferiors and to continue to criminalize the use/possession of small amounts of marijuana use for personal use. In the case of the latter issue, I for one have never believed that marijuana use necessarily leads to other drug use. Individuals with addictive personalities/genes will become addicted if not on marijuana, then on alcohol or other legal drugs. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic towards such individuals, but the fact that some will abuse marijuana and/or become psychologically addicted should not mean that we put laws on the books that needlessly condemn many to criminal records for mere recreational use of marijuana. The situation is truly no different than with alcohol and we all know what a failure Prohibition turned out to be - except for the bootleggers who made fortunes. Likewise, the younger generation increasingly recognizes that the validating same sex relationships in no wise threatens heterosexual marriage. Indeed, it might avoid all of the divorces that arise from gays marrying straights in an effort to conform only to have it all fall apart over time. Here are some highlights:

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Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. A predictable failure—the insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—it came to an end in 1933. Today it is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.
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Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. These reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed, but because society has.
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The chief reason these prohibitions are falling away is the evolving definition of the pursuit of happiness. What's driving the legalization of gay marriage is not so much the moral argument, but the pressures from couples who want to sanctify their relationships, obtain legal benefits, and raise children in a stable environment. What's advancing the decriminalization of marijuana is not just the demand for pot as medicine but the number of adults—more than 23 million in the past year, according to the most recent government survey—who use it and don't believe they should face legal jeopardy.
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The Internet has been a crucial amplifier of all such claims. With pornography and gambling, the Web itself became an irrepressible distribution tool. When it comes to gay marriage, it has accelerated the recognition of a new civil right by serving as an organizing tool and information clearinghouse. More broadly, the freest communications medium the world has ever known has raised expectations of personal liberty.
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Politicians will continue to lag, rather than lead, these changes. Republicans face a risk in resisting the new realities. If the GOP remains the party of prohibition, it will increasingly alienate libertarian leaners and the young. Democrats face a different danger in embracing cultural transformations too eagerly.
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I believe that Weisberg is correct in his analysis. The question, therefore, then becomes one of when will the forces of reaction and old ways of thinking will be overcome or die out?

GOP House of Delegates Contender Embraces Gay-Rights Positions

I am sure that this story will get the Christo-fascists at The Family Foundation ("TFF") hopping mad and cause its executive director, Victoria Cobb, to start foaming at the mouth and convulsing on the floor. A GOP candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates has - oh the horror - taken a pro-gay rights stand on several issues that are an obsession with TFF. Republican Eric Brescia is running for a district in Arlington, Virginia, historically one of the most progressive areas in the state, so an anti-gay position would not be well received by the voters of that demographically diverse district. This obviously partially explains his positions. However, what I find really interesting is that Brescia says that his pro-gay positions are in keeping with true Republican principles. And you know what? As a member of the GOP in its days before the Christianists took over the party, Republican principles of that time would support a pro-gay rights mindset. Here are some highlights from the Sun Gazette:

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A candidate for office in Arlington who wants to get rid of the state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, eliminate the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allow the county government to give domestic-partner benefits to unmarried members of the government workforce?Sounds like it’s pretty standard stuff for a Democrat. But coming from a Republican, it might raise some eyebrows.

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And yet that’s where Republican Eric Brescia stands. Brescia, seeking to succeed retiring Democratic Del. Albert Eisenberg, has made gay rights a theme prominent enough in his campaign to be featured, if in generalities only, on his Web site. “If I’m elected, I will actively fight for full equality under the law for gays and lesbians,” Brescia told the Sun Gazette.

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“Religious organizations should continue to be free to recognize marriages according to their own teachings, but the principles of separation of church and state and equality under the law demand that we allow consenting adults, whether gay or straight, to enter into civil marriage,” he said.

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Brescia, an economist who was drafted to run earlier this year, said he supports ending prohibitions on service in the military by openly gay individuals; supports adding sexual orientation to protected classes in Virginia’s hate-crimes and fair-housing rules; and supports allowing local governments in Virginia to give certain benefits to unmarried partners of government workers, something Arlington officials have been seeking since 1997. Brescia said it all boils down to basic Republican core values. “I’m a Republican because I believe in individual freedom, the right to contract and equality under the law,” he said.

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Both contenders not only find themselves to the left of Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert McDonnell on the issue, but also to the left of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, who relatively consistently opposed gay-rights measures when they came before the state Senate. That doesn’t concern Mark Kelly, chairman of the Arlington County Republican Committee.“Eric’s candidacy has been met with enthusiasm by Arlington Republicans, even though some may differ with him on some of the issues,” Kelly said.

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The Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance (AGLA) hadn’t been aware of Brescia’s positions until queried by the media, but the organization’s president said she was pleased to hear of them. Beth Kozlow said AGLA planned an October candidate forum in which Brescia, Hope and Ruebner - plus candidates for other offices - could lay out their positions on issues of concern to the local gay and lesbian community. Kozlow said it is a savvy move on Brescia’s part to stake out inclusive positions on issues of importance to the gay community.“If he wants to appeal to where Arlington County is on this issue, it’s a wise position to take, [and] not entirely surprising,” she said.

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The reality is that as the older homophobic generations die off, to win elections politicians will have to face the fact that younger generations of voters favor gay equality. Thus, it will be a case of changing with society or getting defeated at the polls. True, this change will take far longer to occur in backwards areas of Virginia such as Martinsville and backwaters in the far southwest of the state. Nonetheless, the change WILL come eventually.