Yes.

“You don’t see liberals demanding that government mandate that Christian Churches have to baptize children of gay couples, do you? Or that priests must perform last rites on gay couples? Or that Orthodox Jewish synagogues allow transvestite male jews to do a Bat Mitzvah instead of a Bar Mitzvah?

Or that Catholic or Baptist or whatever churches even perform gay marriage ceremonies?”

In isolated cases. If gay marriage becomes a matter of settled law, the advocacy groups that have poured millions dollars and hours into the cause aren’t simply going to go away. Some legal scholars for the gay rights movement have tipped their hand in this regard.

Using gay marriage law as precedent, I cannot imagine a scenario in which they wouldn’t pursue these demands. In particular, I think you will see lawsuits demanding pastors perform gay marriages. That issue will be the next battle.

“Demanding that all the rights that are conferred on married heterosexual couples be available to married (or united or whatever) gay couples is a civil claim … and thus properly a matter of civil rights.”

It is a matter of civil rights, but the very fact that our government recognizes heterosexual marriage introduces other factors. Civil equality is only one consideration.

Or that Catholic or Baptist or whatever churches even perform gay marriage ceremonies?

Those would all represent government intrusion in a religious institution.

Demanding that all the rights that are conferred on married heterosexual couples be available to married (or united or whatever) gay couples is a civil claim … and thus properly a matter of civil rights.

And the ways laws are written across America, it is virtually impossible to guarantee this civil equality under the law without allowing gays to become married.

If you’re looking forward to every seat in every state legislature in the country to be fought largely over abortion rights … you’ll love it if/when Roe v Wade is overturned.

This reduces the power of minorities, as well as enabling the Dem Party to take them for granted.

It’s funny when half the time Republicans argue that Dems are too beholden to minority issues … and then argue that Dems take minorities for granted.

Kevin But ethical considerations take a back seat to civil rights. Not so for many conservatives who are passionate about this issue.

So do you consider gay couples to be acting in a way that is fundamentally unethical?

What you call civil rights, they call government seeking to justify intrusion into what remains a principally religious institution

You don’t see liberals demanding that government mandate that Christian Churches have to baptize children of gay couples, do you? Or that priests must perform last rites on gay couples? Or that Orthodox Jewish synagogues allow transvestite male jews to do a Bat Mitzvah instead of a Bar Mitzvah?

Or that Catholic or Baptist or whatever churches even perform gay marriage ceremonies?

Those would all represent government intrusion in a religious institution.

Demanding that all the rights that are conferred on married heterosexual couples be available to married (or united or whatever) gay couples is a civil claim … and thus properly a matter of civil rights.

And the ways laws are written across America, it is virtually impossible to guarantee this civil equality under the law without allowing gays to become married.

I’ve spent some time thinking about this conundrum myself. However, wouldn’t centrism then be defined as an attempt to reconcile either ideology to itself? If that is the case, then centrist movements really live on the fringes.

If I can successfully that marriage ought not to be a civic enterprise, that abortion threatens our most fundamental firewall against tyranny, and that we ought to legalize marijuana, I have bridged the gap, but could scarcely be called a centrist. It seems to me that being centrist means embracing, and even delighting in, cognitive dissonance.

Sinz,

You still believe abortion should be legal in most circumstances, unless I misunderstand your position. Since you favor the status quo, as a matter of law, it is unsurprising that you find the Roe v. Wade debate so banal.

Read my other posts.

I have asserted that Roe v. Wade was a mistake.
But if the whole abortion issue just faded and Roe v. Wade remained settled case law, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

You don’t choose to fight or die on every single issue. You set priorities.

And for me, abortion is so way down on the list of America’s priorities that I really don’t care what happens:

Roe v. Wade remains settled case law? OK by me.
Some future Supreme Court overturns it? Also OK by me.

In either case, all Americans remain free to advocate for or against the practice of abortion.

Right now, most Americans don’t think much about how their districts are gerrymandered. Most of them couldn’t draw their own district on a map. And the issue doesn’t even show up in public opinion polls.

But if the Tea Party activists or some respected independent figure (like General Petraeus, if he decides to go into politics) hammered away on why this kind of political manipulation is unnecessarily polarizing America and leading to endless gridlock, it might just resonate with the voters.

And this is one area where the Tea Party activists and minority groups could find themselves on the same side. As soon as it’s explained to blacks and Hispanics that gerrymandering created districts with huge minority populations in which the Dem candidate for the House always wins–but which gives all those voters just ONE vote in the House, equal to what a sparsely populated white district out West gets. (An example is NY-16, representing 400,000 blacks and Hispanics with just ONE vote in the House.) This reduces the power of minorities, as well as enabling the Dem Party to take them for granted.

In theory. Well, in your theory. In reality, in spite of exponentially increased awareness of, and access to, birth control, abortion is still alarmingly common. A rubber may be a rub, but it isn’t a magic bullet.

“The ‘gay marriage’ issue is much easier. It is a civil rights issue.’ Even Cheney understands that.”

It’s also unethical. Even Barack Obama understands that.

This is why issues like this are so polarizing. To you, it’s simple. Gay marriage is civil rights. Civil rights are good. It’s in your bones. Any counterargument arrives as an attack on your fundmental presuppositions. How you think about gay marriage speaks to the very root of your progressive ideology.

It’s not that you see no role for communal ethics in shaping law. I assume, for example, that you support tax deductible donations as a general principle. But ethical considerations take a back seat to civil rights. Not so for many conservatives who are passionate about this issue.

Also not so for libertarian conservatives who strongly believe individual states should be able to decide, or who believe government should have no role in marriage whatsoever (full disclosure: this is my position). What you call civil rights, they call government seeking to justify intrusion into what remains a principally religious institution, in an attempt to codify the cultural zeitgeist.

extreme liberty / anarchy || Absolutism/Totalitarianism

Then, where are we and what is the middle? The problem here is that “conservatives” lean toward the left on economic issues (smaller gov; lower taxes; free trade), but to the right on social issues (laws against-gay marriage; certain drugs; etc.). Whereas, “liberals” lean toward the left on social issues and the right on economic issues. Both are entirely inconsistent. Both trend toward totalitarian views on some issues and libertarian views on other issues. Often without realizing their inconsistency.

At the same time, both want to paint the other as oppressive & totalitarian; sometimes on the same issue. It’s absurd. Take abortion. Both want to claim the side of “liberty” (“the right of the liberty of a woman to choose” vs. “the right of the liberty of life for an unprotected child”), and paint the other side as oppressive. Of course, conservatives don’t help their cause when they want to couch their views in their religion (this never works, pragmatically or politically – and I’m deeply devoted to the Bible; and would be viewed as a conservative in that area). When a conservative puts gay marriage, for example, into the religious realm, the liberal is all to happy to let them. They can easily paint them as a religious and oppressive zealot who wants stringent laws against individual freedom. And, in many respects, they are right on that count. The whole tact of trying to outlaw gay marriage is ridiculous. It captivates a coterie of religious zealots, but it neither furthers the cause of liberty nor even the cause of the biblical conservative (that issue is best left to individual, one on one discussions, not to the courts or the congress). It only puts up barriers to honorable disagreement and discussion.

Until conservatives come to grips with this problem, with their inconsistent application of liberty, with their inability to distinguish between a truly public issue and a private, religious one, and until they break down these barriers – they will never succeed.

Sure. Because every parent is ready to make decisions for their kids that will statistically ensure that they (and their grandkids) will have a lower standard of living.

Have you had kids, Sinz?

What should be the “huge ramifications”?

In the old days, there was an excellent deterrent for unwanted pregnancy: Shotgun marriages. If the young man knew he had to either marry his pregnant girlfriend, or else her outraged father would blow his head off, he would be much more careful about sex.

Now we can’t do actual shotgun marriages today. But we can do something modern: Parents should tell their kids that if their sexual activity results in pregnancy, the parents will refuse to pay for their kids’ college education. Once the girl is a mom, or her boyfriend is a dad, they should get a job and support their new child.

I would tell my son: “You see those young guys working as stock room clerks and cashiers and baggers at the supermarket? That’s YOUR FUTURE, if you become a dad any time soon. No college, no college degree, no Ph.D. Just a stock room clerk trying to support his son.”

I agree with you here. But it is a still a polarizing issue no matter how much people wish it to go away. We still have one of the highest unwanted pregnancy rates in the developed world, and a high abortion rate. So Americans of every stripe must pay attention.

But you are also correct, sadly, that there are extremists on both side of the issue, neither of which wants to discuss this state of affairs with rational, calm, and deliberation. Instead it is charged with religious overtones, which is not a bad thing in and unto itself, until it starts to ignore reality and facts . The other side, those extreme ‘feminists’ that you earlier railed against, give abortion a flip of the wrist, with such casualness, often causing many women to opt for abortions as a means for birth control.

And there’s the rub. Birth control. The single greatest answer to the problem of unwanted pregnancies and abortion . There are those that do not want kids to hear about or even use birth control, much preferring that they risk that their kids are always going to do the right thing. Very few kids in the heat of a passionate moment, will have enough will power to resist. They are in a virtual onslaught of sexual images everyday in their lives, in all media, but then we expect them to remain chaste and pure till they reach the age of 25 or even 30 when most of them are now marrying. It’s a foolish goal.

The others who casually dismiss abortion as a form of birth control are equally wrong. Abortion should be the last choice for women not the first. If both females and males were taught sexual responsibility from the first, with the huge ramifications when they don’t, and widespread and affordable availability for birth control was an option, unwanted pregnancies would be reduced, and abortions would become rare.

But you’ve got Sarah Palin on record saying that even if her daughter had been raped, she would not opt for abortion. Which is fine moral stance, but not everyone will make that choice, given that most people will never be adopting these poor neglected children sitting in foster homes.

We must solve this problem. It has huge impact on society and a huge impact politically. People both liberal and conservative who are willing to compromise should get the conversation going instead of sweeping it under the rug. It’s like the balloon which you keep trying to keep down – it just won’t stay down.

Kudos to Scott Brown, by the by on this issue. Or any Republican who doesn’t give this very grave issue the simplistic religious wrist flip without discussing real facts and problems. This country needs more of this type of moral courage.

kevin47: The ‘gay marriage’ issue is much easier. It is a civil rights issue.’ Even Cheney understands that.