Conservatives shouldn’t let real life intrude on their “no compromise” worldview
Radio hate-monger Mike Huckabee told Newsmax TV that if Republicans compromise on marriage equality, “evangelicals will walk”. He then went on to describe how their homophobic political agenda doesn’t mean they’re homophobic and says that lawmakers shouldn’t allow their life experiences to guide their opinions on things like marriage equality and civil rights for the LGBT community. He finished up by comparing shifts in attitudes about same-sex marriage to bad basketball players.
I’m not kidding.
Roll tape (please feel free to ignore the ad that might appear at the beginning of the video):
News Anchor: Do see the party ever pivoting or doing a 180 on gay marriage?Mike Huckabee: They might. And if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk.
And it’s not because there’s an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody’s homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but we base it on an objective standard, not a subjective standard.
I have great sympathy and extraordinary admiration for Sen. Portman. I consider him a friend and I value his work in the Senate and think he’s a great person. The mistake is that we sometimes base our public policy decisions on how we feel, how we think, maybe even some personal experiences, and we don’t regard a lot of these issues from the standpoint of an objective standard.
Let me explain what I mean by that. If we have subjective standards, that means that we’re willing to move our standards based on the prevailing whims of culture. Politicians have an obligation to be thermostats, not just thermometers. They’re not simply to reflect the temperature of the room, or the culture, as it were. They’re to set the standards for law, for what’s right, for what’s wrong, understanding that not everybody’s going to agree with it.
On this issue, I recognize the culture is moving away from the traditional standard, but it’s almost like saying, well, we have a basketball team and nobody on the team can hit the goal that’s 10 feet off the floor so we’re going to lower the goal down to six feet and that way everybody can slam dunk the ball.
So the question is, have you have improved your basketball game? Or have you actually just changed the standard so it looks like you’re doing better? And that’s my concern.
Huckabee is shouting at the ocean. The change he fears at his core is happening and there isn’t anything he or his homophobic friends who he claims aren’t homophobic can do about it. The bonus for progressives is that, as the Republican party evolves with society, the backwards-thinking evangelicals are kneecapping them politically. Neither can win without the other and religious conservatives appear to be dead set on making the Republican party politically irrelevant from here on out.
What you think of in terms of bad basketball playing, Mr. Huckabee, the rest of as think of us evolving. But, then, I suppose that, too, is a concept you simply cannot accept.
[Photo credit: Chris Savage | Eclectablog]
