If President-Elect Obama’s goal is to unite the country, it seems that he’s already been amazingly successful in bringing both the right and the left together in one emotion—anxiety.
While the Left is wringing its hands over his selection of Rick Warren to give an inauguration prayer, the Right is worrying itself to death about what Obama will do about their hot button culture war issues like marriage equality for gays and lesbians and abortion.
On Focus on the Family’s radio show this week, Frank Pastore interviewed right wing leaders Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Gary Bauer, president of American Values.
What’s on their mind? Poverty? War? The economy? Nope, nope, and nope.
Perkins said the battle over marriage is on center stage.
We have an administration that supports the redefinition of marriage in many, many ways. We’ve got a number of issues that are going to be coming out of Washington. The Defense of Marriage Act, Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crimes are all going to be on the table right after the Obama administration begins.”
Oh, no! Obama might make gay people equal to all other people in marriage and employment and actually give harsher punishment to people who beat or kill gay or lesbian people simply because of who they are. How will we survive this administration?
Bauer is equally worried. He described the situation as a “witch’s brew.”
You’ve got people in government, willing to use the force of law to push the radical gay-rights agenda,” he said, “and you’ve got a gay-rights movement that is willing to use the tactics of intimidation in the streets of America to silence those that would dare oppose them.
Well, if you ask me, that’s a welcome change from people in government willing to use the force of law to push the radical right wing agenda to outlaw abortions and put a federal marriage “protection” amendment into the United States Constitution. The right wing has been using tactics of intimidation against gays and lesbians for years. Witness the state constitutional bans against marriage equality for gays and lesbians, laws outlawing gay adoptions, churches banning gays and lesbians from the pulpit and the pews and right wing preaching against our very lives from their pulpits. No wonder they don’t want any hate crime laws passed – they know their words are often turned into hateful action by those who hear them.
Bauer isn’t done yet. He’s afraid Obama will wipe away all restrictions on abortion, claiming, “Americans are troubled by abortion on demand. Americans are against most abortions.”
According to a CNN poll taken in August 2008, 53 percent of those asked said they were “pro-choice” while 44 percent described themselves as “pro-life.” So, no, Americans are not against abortion or overly troubled by it.
But, once you’ve stepped into the fantasy world of the right wing, it’s hard to leave it. Pastore joined in with his own vision of unicorns.
I’m very optimistic. If the church gets energized and they engage in culture and seek to redeem it, we, yet again, will be able to advance our values, because I don’t think most Americans want to live in a world where the Left’s values, or lack thereof, are the rule of the day.
Again, the numbers disprove his assertions. Most Americans emphatically do want to live in a world of “Left” values. A Pew Research poll on political value trends from 1987 to 2007 shows growing support for government programs for the needy, shrinking support for “old fashioned values about family and marriage,” and diminishing feelings of religious intensity.
I don’t suppose I should be surprised at all this. To be right wing always means never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.
