Surviving the same-sex marriage decision

As I wrote often, Rod Dreher, a religious/cultural blogger, regularly moaned about the growing support for same-sex marriage. His complaints reached a pinnacle (or maybe more than one) as he tried to find the culprit for the fall of marriage from a holy sacrament (joining man, woman, and God) to a piece of toilet paper freely available to perverts.

How badly has Dreher freaked out now that the US will have legal same-sex marriage all over the country?

He's not doing too badly. He's on a trip to Italy right now, enjoying the food, history, and street festivals, or preferable all three at the same time. He's got the right idea. Before the total downfall of Western civilization, I'd like to spend more time in Italy too.

Image: theamericanconservative.com

It's rather sentimental of me to wonder whether this opponent has survived the ruling. Not that I really worried that anyone was going to kill himself over this ruling. Nearly everyone saw it coming. Justice Kennedy, the usual swing vote on the Supreme Court, had voted to declare some of DOMA unconstitutional two years ago, so it wouldn't take clairvoyance to foresee this ruling.

So almost all saw this coming. Almost all let the LGBTQ and allies celebrate their victory unmolested. There were rainbow sprinkles all over Facebook, and, with triumphalism, rainbow lighting on the White House. Not exactly tactful or magnanimous.

Image: forum.bandmix.com

Some GOP presidential candidates said stupid things, but that's an everyday occurrence. Let's see, Bobby Jindal called for the money-saving move of abolishing the Supreme Court. I wonder if he followed up with a paean to the Constitution. Based on headlines, Jindal won the 'GOP leader stupid contest' over the perennial winner Ted Cruz. Cruz was probably runner-up, though, with the suggestion that Supreme Court justices face elections every 8 years. This idea suffers from being too complex, especially compared to Jindal's simple and pure stupidity.

Culture warriors warn of several looming crises.

1. The polygamists are coming!
2. The pedophiles are coming!
3. It won't be safe to express anti-gay beliefs.
4. Churches will lose their tax-exempt status.
5. This is the final straw that ends marriage in the US.
6. This is the final straw that ends the American experiment in democracy.
7. Anyone who doesn't cheer on same-sex marriage will risk losing their job.

Except for the panicking dissenting justices, there aren't many who are still predicting the swift demise of the US, so the response is more moderate than expected. After all, not all these looming crises are completely ludicrous. No, pedophilia won't be legalized, but the concerns about the chilling of viewpoints are well founded. (More posts later on that.)

One fascinating thing I learned is how widespread the gay pride movement is. I looked for images of the rainbow flag, and found it in Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Cambodia, China, and a huge number of images for India. The movement for tolerance is a world-wide phenomenon, not just a parochial battle in the US culture war. I still haven't grasped how momentous this movement is.

Image: citizenside.com

Extra. Perhaps before he left for Italy (judging from the tone), Dreher wrote a hilarious post about the future. It includes: polygamy, gay gated communities, all marriages gone queer, and no religious institutions left standing. No irrationality there! Here is Chicken Little:

"I remember a time, practically the day before yesterday, when conservatives who warned that gay marriage would inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely were called paranoid bigots."

This prediction is based on one gay novelist's imagination of life in 2035. But that is enough to declare "gay marriage [will] inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely." Yeah, right.

Do Sharia No-Go zones exist?

First, I'm going to be clear that I can't answer this question. It's hard to prove that something doesn't exist, while it's much easier to definitely show that something does exist. If you want to prove that Big Foot exists, produce a living or dead example that can be probed and x-rayed. If you want to prove that a Sharia No-Go zone exists, it's somewhat harder, but it should be possible. Get eye-witness accounts along with photos and hopefully video.

The reports of a sharia No-Go zone in Dearborn are fake. Evangelists were heckled, and objects were thrown at them when they crashed an Arab celebration. Based on that distinct provocation, and the reaction, some biased news outlets are claiming that 'Christians were stoned.' To me, that sounds like an organized, quasi-governmental suppression and punishment, not a dust-up between two unfriendly groups during the equivalent of a county fair.

It's even harder for me to know what's the story in Europe, where there have been much higher levels of immigration from Muslim countries. This article refers to many sources, but is still dubious. It features someone (an caucasian convert putting up one 'sharia zone' sticker), and few other pictures of these supposed zones. This list of French zones, supposedly sharia No-Go zones, may just be a list of high-crime or high-need areas. My French is too rusty, but maybe that's the point. A translation would be likely to reveal the knowing misuse of this piece of information. Snopes debunks it.

Why should I worry about one of many faked news stories? I suppose it got my goat that a nationally known and probable GOP presidential candidate would promote such dreck. I'm referring to Bobby Jindal. As this article says: "I'm tired of being semi-alone in viewing the Louisiana governor as especially cynical and dangerous." Yes, that's the way it looks to me too.

So it's strange to be agreeing somewhat with Jindal that Muslim immigration has brought some big problems. Jindal says "it is completely reasonable for nations to discriminate between allowing people into their country who want to embrace their culture, or allowing people into their country who want to destroy their culture, or establish a separate culture within." Muslim enclaves have too often been places where radicalism flourishes without pushback from non-radical voices.

I'm a strong believer in diversity and pluralism, but also in not inviting avowed enemies to share your house. The US and European countries, in the name of diversity and charity for refugees, have been lax in screening out those who would bomb us, kill us, and take over our countries. We should have been more careful in vetting refugees and other immigrants, but since we weren't, we have the problem of an unknown number of bombers and terrorists among us.

This leads to a lot of complications that I haven't been able to sort out. How do we keep an eye on potentially violent Muslim terrorists without shredding the rights guaranteed by the Constitution? I hoped I could work out an answer in time for this post, but I can't. This is a tough issue that we face here in the US, but is even tougher in Europe. This is the real question, as opposed to the fake worry about sharia zones and Christians being stoned.

Don't like the neighbors? Don't move here.

Image: mylondondiary.co.uk

Extras. I also looked for Youtube videos showing these sharia zones. Most of the videos are of talking heads, except this interview with two English women, and an interview with a pro-Sharia spokesman. No good evidence for sharia No-Go zones at Youtube.

Leader of the opposition

Ed Morrissey of HotAir writes a couple of interesting columns on who will be the de facto leader of the Republicans. He correctly points out that Boehner and McConnell will be too busy and too tainted with deal-making, so he offers these names:

1. Rand Paul
2. Bobby Jindal
3. Rick Perry
4. Marco Rubio
5. Chris Christie

These are mostly good picks in that they're likely to be visible leaders, if not the leader. (It makes me wonder who was the leader from 2009 to 2011 when the primaries started. Critics say it was Rush Limbaugh, and maybe it was. Luckily not anymore.)

Rand Paul is certainly going to be the leader of the small-government libertarian pack. He has stayed almost constantly true to those principles. However, the libertarians aren't the dominant force in the GOP, so he couldn't be the dominant leader. His small-military views just aren't popular with most of the GOP, and they can't overlook that.

Bobby Jindal bucked a fair amount of the 2012 losing rhetoric, so it seemed that he was trying to make a name for himself as an intelligent reformer of the GOP. As a moderate, I like that, but I don't know if enough Republicans feel that way. Certainly the noisy ones don't. Nonetheless, he deserves to be on this list right now, but he could easily fall off by going too far or not far enough.

Rick Perry doesn't deserve to be on this list. He was a laughable candidate in 2011. Maybe the pain meds have worn off, but you can't fix stupid. He gives every indication of having been briefed on all of his opinions, rather than mulling them over and developing his own ideas. I think he's someone's marionette. If he can become a national leader, then I don't know anything about American politics.

Marco Rubio is certainly running for leader and running for president. However, Romney's campaign showed the weakness of choosing someone who is constantly running for office instead of being engaged in actual governing and problem-solving. Rubio is flash but no substance at this point. I don't think the GOP will go for a lightweight again.

Chris Christie has lately been reviled among many Republicans, so it's hard to imagine him rising above that to be a spokesman and leader of a large enough slice of the GOP. He's certainly got the verbal talent and a can-do record, but too many Republicans hate him right now, and that's not going to be easy to change.

Something missing from this list is the conservative-pragmatic governor archetype. I'm thinking Mitch Daniels, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Rick Snyder. They've all dealt (cleaned up/reformed) at the state level with the kinds of problems the federal government faces--how to trim spending and reduce benefits for government workers without massive service cuts. Also important, they haven't tainted themselves with culture war rhetoric on abortion and contraception as Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has.

These governors are the solid, working leaders in each of their states, but who speaks for them nationally? If they did have a national champion, that would be a formidable leader. I'm going to be curious to see how this develops. The next few months will be worth watching.

 

Image: qctimes.com

Extra. Will we have new leaders in punditry? It's less important, but it would be such a relief.

Update 6/21/13. According to this column, Jindal has trotted out the typical GOP fallback position of bashing liberals. It looks like Jindal will put on any stance when it is expedient, including clear-eyed reformer. Too bad it was just an act.