I knew from her Twitter post last night that today’s Daily Beast column was going to be a doozy. No real surprises here, just Ms. McCain making an argument that Republican values are compatible with gay rights values. Perhaps there’s an argument to be made here, but unfortunately, she never makes it. Instead, we get a sort of “look at all these other GOP stars who agree with me, even RONALD REAGAN!!!”
Reagan, McCain says, opposed a California proposition in 1978 that would have barred gays from teaching in California:
Yeah, you read that right. The ultimate Republican rock star bucked the conventional wisdom of his advisers as they were planning his presidential campaign and helped fight the anti-gay proposition because he knew it was wrong. Reagan’s argument centered around the idea that parents already had all the rights they needed to protect their children and that the government did not need to interfere. It was a perfect example of the Great Communicator doing what was right, but not in a way that further divided voters.
There are so many problems with this DB piece that I feel like it’s a waste to even try to address them all. Still, if certain folks are trying to hold Meghan McCain up as the ideal young Republican/conservative (the latter she’s explicitly not), it’s probably best to attempt to dig in.
At no point in this piece does McCain ever engage in any critical thought. Ronald Reagan thought that a law that would specifically ban gay people from having a job was a bad idea. So that means Republicans should now embrace gay marriage? It’s a series of pretty huge logical jumps: Reagan was against gays being banned from an entire industry. So were the Log Cabin Republicans. LCRs also want gay marriage. Reagan would have agreed (or so it’s implied). So, Republicans who love Reagan should want gay marriage. Huh?
McCain even references the 527 group GOProud that just broke with the LCRs because they’re…too liberal. You don’t say. LCRs are a group that invites people like Meghan McCain to their conventions.
At any rate, does McCain actually want to engage in a thoughtful discussion about gay marriage from a traditional Republican or conservative perspective like, say, the folks at Gay Patriot? Not really. Instead, she makes the same tired argument that this issue is an historical inevitability, that young people are more accepting and the GOP needs to get on board.
I am willing to hear arguments from a conservative perspective that we should support gay marriage. I have my own thoughts on the issue. I think the concept of “gay marriage” unnecessarily redefines marriage, which I understand as a legal and personal union between a man and a woman for the purposes of companionship and procreation (though that’s not always the case, which I fully acknowledge). I believe it is fundamentally conservative to understand that words and meaning have consequence to how we live and communicate, and the concept of “gay marriage” seems to reject an entire history of meaning for the sake of righting a perceived social wrong.
I don’t equate banning someone from a job because they are gay to stopping gays from “marrying” each other. Perhaps mine is a fight I’m going to lose, but I still believe it’s important to defend this meaning.
Conservatives, both gay and straight, may disagree. They may have legitimate arguments to support their point. They may convince me and other conservatives (though probably not your social ultra-conservatives) that they are right. Bring it on, let’s discuss it and debate it. Let’s agree to disagree if we have to. Let’s be civil and let’s avoid being “anti-gay” as if gays aren’t human beings or something.
But let’s not let people like Meghan McCain try to tell us that we’ve got to just go along with it, because Christie Todd Whitman says we should, or because more young people say we should, or because it’s just gonna happen anyway. We want to engage in a discussion of ideas. Meghan McCain, based on her posts at DB and appearance on TV, clearly does not.
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