Morality in politics

While I applaud columnist Josh Skees for the encouraging wordsyesterday to his fellow liberals — of which I am one —I do not share his optimism about the future.

Perhaps because I know that hubristic Republicans — fromPresident Bush all the way down to Swede Hanson — interprettheir victory, no matter how narrow, as the Divine Right ofRepublicans. Or perhaps because I know that too often good peoplestand by while bad people do bad things.

During the last four years, we’ve heard a lot of peoplewith absolutely no moral authority talk about how our society wasbuilt on the Judeo-Christian tradition. What they fail toacknowledge is that the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that manis inherently bad and must be forced to do the right thing.

At best, when push comes to shove, most people opt for the mostneutral position they can find, and in cases of a tie, they followthe path of least resistance, which translated into Bush’snarrow re-election on Nov. 2.

To anyone who disagrees with me, I challenge you to explain theHolocaust. Explain how good Germans allowed the Holocaust tohappen.

Yes, Hitler was evil, but good people in Germany allowed him tosystematically pervert the collective German conscience, because heknew that people, when faced with the option of doing what wasright or doing nothing, would do nothing. Before anyone breaks outpen and paper to write to say how dare I compare Bush to Hitler,let me say that you are missing my point.

Straight people, regardless of how liberal they are or howwilling they are to support civil unions, will do nothing to bringthem about, nor will they do anything when parasitic, self-servingpoliticians move further to limit the rights of gay people, and inthe process exploit fear and bigotry to advance their politicalagenda.

Knowing that they can count on their moderate base, but willhave to continue to work hard to keep the evangelical vote,Republicans, like snake-oil salesman, will continue to peddle hatedisguised as morality, knowing that there are plenty of peoplegullible enough to buy into their duplicity.

Swede Hanson cannot be faulted for being raised in anenvironment that bombarded him with sanctimony, proselytizing andmisguided biblical teachings. He can be faulted, however, for notbeing able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

As we speak, lawmakers in Texas are drafting an amendment forthe 2005 general election that will define marriage as the unionbetween a man and a woman. People like Mr. Hanson, however, areeither incapable or unwilling to understand the real motive behindtheir political grandstanding.

In a party whose members are mired in personal scandal —whether marital, financial or otherwise criminal — thesame-sex marriage issue is nothing more than a red herring issue towin votes and detract from their own moral shortcomings.

I wonder if Mr. Swede would have voted for the lunatic AlanKeyes instead of Barack Obama knowing that Alan Keyes advocatespaying slave reparations to African-Americans, just so he could sayhe voted for a homophobic Republican rather than an inclusiveDemocrat.

I wonder if Mr. Swede would have voted for Rep. David Dreier, acloseted homosexual who has one of the most anti-gay voting recordsin Congress and whose live-in lover doubled as his chief of staff,just because the self-loathing homosexual Dreier was theco-chairman of Californians for Bush and friend to conservativecauses and his openly lesbian candidate was a Democrat.

I wonder if Mr. Swede would have voted for Jennifer Knox Helms,the Republican candidate for state court judge in North Carolinaand the closeted lesbian granddaughter of Jesse Helms, arguably themost homophobic, racist and misogynist senator is recent history,just because she was a Republican.

Would he continue to support the President knowing thatBush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman, who is consideringrunning for Chair of the RNC, was a closeted homosexual? In allfairness to Mehlman, requests from numerous news organizations thathe respond to rumors about his sexuality have gone unanswered.Regardless, when was the last time you met a straight man whorefused to confirm that he was straight?

My point is this:

“…Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any cityof the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep ofthe house of Israel …. Verily I say unto you, It shall be moretolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha [sic] in the day ofjudgment, than for that city.” (Matthew 10:5, 6, 15,KJV).

Translation: Get your own house in order before you preach toanyone else. And if you accept that Sodom and Gomorrah wasGod’s judgment against homosexuals, the only way thisscripture can be interpreted is that homosexuals will go to heavenbefore the unconverted Jews. Fortunately, it is no longeracceptable for Evangelicals to condemn Jews; unfortunately, itstill is acceptable to condemn homosexuals.

The truth is no one — neither Swede Hanson nor PresidentBush — has the right to condemn anyone.

George Henson is a lecturer of Spanish. He may be contactedat [email protected].