The sanctity of marriage

SYD,

The reason I was able to join the Conservative movement is that I found out that all I had to support was fiscal conservatism. The Conservative tent is pretty big and includes fiscal conservatives who are social liberals; fiscal conservatives who are social conservatives — these are the ones who like to pose as the face of conservatism, but that’s not the reality; and libertarians. Conservatives have a more elaborate taxonomy, but I have not been able to remember the finer sub-categories.

There is totalitarianism on both the Right and the Left, but it seems to have absorbed the entire Left now so that the idealists — PUMAs like you and HillBuzz — feel betrayed and bewildered. George Orwell laid out the paradigm perfectly in Animal Farm. The idealists on the Left are like the animals in the barn.

The totalitarianism on the Right seems to me to be concentrated in social conservatism, although they have their idealists, too, who are not totalitarian.

But it seems to me people on the Right have better boundaries than Lefties do because they allow people to have different beliefs provided they all share the common ground of fiscal conservatism. Lefties have no way to understand this because the diversity on the Left is superficial — race, color, religion, sexual orientation — while the totalitarian insistence on ideological conformity is absolute. Go read Phyllis Chesler on how she got thrown out for challenging the Left. Margaret and I were thrown out in 1996 for our six-year campaign to get Passages, an annual conference for older lesbians, which was led by lesbians who were at the very top of the disability rights movement, TO CHOOSE MEETING PLACES THAT MET FEDERAL GUIDELINES FOR WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY.

So — I am accepted as a conservative because I support capitalism and I know there is a tipping point of taxation and government intrusion that destroys the ability of individuals to reach their full potential. As icing on the cake, I support Second Amendment rights and energy independence and I reject climate change/anthropomorphic global warming. I lived in a community that was overwhelmed by illegal aliens, with the result that I support border security and the immediate deportation of all illegal aliens (this has to do with their opposition to equality for women and gays AND BREAKING OUR LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION). However, I support full legal equality for homosexuals (same-sex marriage equality, right to adopt, right to serve openly in the military, etc.). I am pro-choice. And I oppose the teaching of the religious doctrines of Creationism and Intelligent Design in public schools and at any university because they are factually wrong.

You can see that’s quite a mixed bag. I get to have all those opinions on the Right and I’m still welcome. There may be heated discussions, but I haven’t encountered the physical attacks and psychotic episodes and scorched earth personal destruction campaigns that I got on the Left FOR TRYING TO HOLD THEM TO THEIR STATED IDEALS.

Also, you are right about the disconnect in Conservatism about believing in liberty and equality but denying it to homosexuals. I am working to connect Conservatives to their ideals so they see it is consistent with their ideals to support equality for homosexuals.

Does that help?

Cynthia

P.S.

If you get an RSS feed, let me know — I would like to add your blog to my newsfeed, but I just tried and it won’t work with an Atom feed.