Is That Legal?

The problem with the Republicans' exploiting the New Jersey gay rights decision is not that gay rights is not a major problem. It is that it is not a problem at all, even for anti-gay-rights people, as they are unaffected by the decision. The Republicans' exploitation of the decision is an appeal to bigotry, and nothing but an appeal to bigotry.

It’s not bigotry. It is not necessarily even religion. Republicans/conservatives just haven’t done a very good job articulating what their problems with the gay issue are.

As Syrus says, "we tolerate the usual vices but blame new ones." New vices spring out of the lesser ones beneath each, each new vice like a higher step on a stair case. Since each step is taken steadily, but once at a time, we always arrive at our present location gradually. As such, we do not stay surprised long at whatever sort of behavior obtains, particularly behavior involving sexual indulgence. There was a time when pre-marital sex and divorce were scandal. Now they are more common than not. As we march steadily up this staircase, we will achieve such new heights of sexual indulgence that garden-variety homosexuality seems wholesome even to hardened conservatives by comparison.

The gay issue does not exist in a vacuum, but is symptomatic of a broader trend toward excess and indulgence in all quarters of society. This trend can also be seen in corporations, for instance, which continue to astonish us with their apparently insatiable greed. What angers republicans/conservatives about the gay issue is that any imprimatur of government approval stamped on homosexuality seems to suggest that the government does not really care about this broader trend toward excess or its consequences, whatever those may be. (And I am not here to make those arguments.) Surely a typical democrat/liberal would agree with that proposition, if only the topic were the greed of corporations, particularly as they relate to the possible motivations of the Iraq War. Whatever the political issue to which it is being applied, we are all affected by the excess and indulgence of our society.

Therefore, liberals and conservatives are both right, really. The government doesn’t care about anything. Government is nothing but the aggregate of political opportunism and ambition.

This iceberg goes even deeper, down to the most fundamental of political assumptions: whether people are basically good or basically bad. If you answer bad, religion will help fill in some of the gaps. If you answer good, you will tend to eschew religion, or religious politics. Whatever your answer to the question, it will send you well on your way to your final world-view. The point is that opinions on the gay issue, and all issues, are more complicated than bigotry or religion.

So the final answer to your question, on whether we have better things to worry about. Yes-the usual vices.