1:30pm EST
NYC HAS 8000 BIGOTED HOUSES OF WORSHIP: As the debate is raging over the appropriate timing to raise the debate about how best to protect the institution of marriage, those of us fighting for marriage are being labeled bigots. Those doing the labeling are saying that faith-based church attending Christians, people of color included are trying to "out-nig*er" homosexuals via the ghost of George Wallace. Ann Woolner of Bloomberg (as in Michael) News Service comments...
May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Alabama voters taught a racial moderate named George Wallace a lesson in 1958 when they rejected him for governor and elected instead an unambiguous race-baiter.
``I was out-niggered,'' Wallace told a campaign official, according to historical accounts. ``I will never be out-niggered again.''
He wasn't. Alabama rewarded his conversion by electing him governor the next time around. ``Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!'' he shouted to a roaring crowd at his 1963 inauguration.
These days the language is less mean-spirited and more restrained, but the tactic is the same. Cynical politicians promote their careers by inflaming fear and prejudice against an unpopular group, no matter how hurtful the tactic or dishonest the rhetoric.
If it helps their careers to vote to deny full legal rights to a segment of the population, so be it.
Hence the sudden interest in reviving a constitutional ban on gay marriage. In Washington, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee last week sent the proposal to the full Senate, recommending approval by a strict party-line vote.
What is the urgency, you might ask? There is no way the proposal will win the two-thirds vote needed in both chambers of Congress.
The urgency is the November election. The Republican Party is sliding badly in public opinion polls, and GOP control of Congress is at risk.
The observation Ms. Woolner is trying to evoke is that those who are faithful Christians, who adhere to a moral law that supercedes the mere legal realm of our current culture are the equivalent of race-baiting hate mongers who did not share God's values in relating to people who were of a different racial make-up than themselves.
What Ms. Woolner continues to do is give credence to the lie - that there is no difference in DNA pre-determination, and willful acts of behavior.
While there is nothing that my Haitian American son can do to change the color of his skin - nor should he, nor would he ever want to - there is still a significant chasm between that and him choosing to have sex before marriage, with a girl, a boy, anything or anyone else...
Woolner's ignorance of the basic facts - such as the non-existance of any biological predetermination as the root cause for homosexual behavior - warrants strict analysis and criticism of her conclusions.
