Rites of Right Passage at Townhall
By Mona
The times they are a changin’ and the right-wing is verily “growing up” about… sex. No, really. Cal Thomas happily notes this fact in his most recent offering at that bastion of wingnut fustian, Townhall:
Conservative Evangelical Christian voters have come a long way in a short time. From their nearly unanimous condemnation of Bill Clinton for his extramarital affairs, a growing number of these “pro-family” voters appear ready to accept several Republican presidential candidates who do not share their ideal of marriage and faith.Among those seriously under consideration by these church-going folks is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been married three times and who had an affair with the woman now his wife when he was married to wife number two. ….Another of the thrice married is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who, last week, trod the Damascus Road to Colorado Springs. On the syndicated radio program of psychologist James Dobson, Gingrich confessed that he had an extramarital affair with the woman to whom he is now married while he was married to his second wife.
And about time, too, now that the Republican presidential candidate field is heavily populated with serial adulterers and those demonstrably unable to sustain a series of marriages, any marriage. Thus through sheer but fortuitous coincidence conservative Republicans have now “matured” according to Thomas, and (my emphasis):
…substantial numbers of conservative evangelical voters are even considering these candidates as presidential prospects is a sign of their political maturation and of their more pragmatic view of what can be expected from politics and politicians. It is also evidence that many of them are awakening to at least two other realities – (1) they are not electing a church deacon; and (2) government has limited power to rebuild a crumbling social construct.
Now, Mr. Thomas is among those who have, oh-so-commendably grown. Oh yes, for in his 1998 column about President Bill Clinton’s sex life, Thomas indignantly held forth that:
[Secret Service] [a]gents took to betting on how long it would take for the president to arrive at his office from the family quarters once he heard Monica Lewinsky was there. …Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has suggested that “bad conduct itself” might be reason enough to impeach the president. So should the corrupting of an institution that has served honorably and well until the Clinton presidency. Everything and everyone with whom Bill Clinton comes in contact is at risk of infection. If we were dealing with a health plague, the proper response would be quarantine or medication of sufficient strength to eradicate the disease and to protect others from infection. With a political disease that has infected even the Secret Service and other institutions and agencies of government, the only proper remedy is removal from office of the one carrying the virus..Let the impeachment hearings begin the process of purging us of this terrible disease.
No doubt if asked, Mr. Thomas would agree that his 1998 remarks were terribly, embarrassingly immature.
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Mr. Thomas should also commend the adult commentary of his Townhall co-columnist, Mike S. Adams, a professor of criminology who insists that Ann Coulter not apologize for calling John Edwards a faggot. In his How to bomb a gay bathhouse piece, this nuanced sage posits:
Gay persecution does not rival black persecution in the annals (I could not find a better word to insert here) of American history. Any assertion to the contrary is simply too queer to take seriously.
And then there is Townhall columnist Michael Medved, reaching the full-flowering of his mature political musings in a column about how yucky gay guys are — a Medved delight that I wrote about here — and now buttressing his reputation as a profound and seasoned pundit with this observation about conservatives:
…we generally favor “less regulation†but we also want more restrictions on abortion, pornography and desecration of the flag….The pro-life consensus among most conservatives stems not only from religious commitment but from a logical desire to avoid facilitating irresponsible behavior – in both snuffing out potential life and encouraging reckless sexuality.
(Let me point out there is one, and only one, legitimate argument — tho not necessarily one that ought to prevail — against legal abortion, and punishing “reckless” sexual behavior, or protecting merely “potential” life are not it. But many on the religious right hold the views they do on abortion precisely because they wish to “punish” wicked women. Good luck convincing your fellow citizens with that “argument.”)
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And when addressing the advanced state of political development on the right when human sexuality is implicated, one could never responsibly fail to mention Townhall’s Kevin “Why Liberals Love Pedophiles” McCullough, who most recently advises us thus about homosexual bloggers:
They are rabid consumers of homosexual pornography and have spent days, months, possibly years in front of their television screens acting out on the urges within them. They have been enslaved by the unforgiving voices that have told them since birth to act upon every sexual urge they have. The thought of personal sexual restraint is foreign to these bloggers.
Spend a lot of time thinking about those hours and hours you just know those lucky bastards morally depraved gay dudes spend watching porn, do you Kevin? (The title of Kevin’s column is “Why Christians Embrace ‘Gay’ Porn Stars,” and Jim says I can award a UO pony to s/he who comes up with the cleverest observation there, two ponies if they work Ted Haggard into it.)
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Yes, Townhall and the conservative movement. Standing tall, and all growed up.
Comment by Ryan —
March 14, 2007 @ 11:36 am
“But many on the religious right hold the views they do on abortion precisely because they wish to “punish†wicked women.”
Right – and pro-choicers like myself love abortion because we hate religion and family. The idea that day-old fetuses deserve moral consideration is ludicrous enough without imputing cartoonish motivations to those who propose it.
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 14, 2007 @ 11:41 am
Extra points for the paranthetical being better than the original double entendre!
Comment by IOZ —
March 14, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
Curiously enough, a great many examples of homosexual pornography begin with men watching heterosexual pornograph. Even more oddly, this often seems to occur on a boat.
Comment by mds —
March 14, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
The idea that day-old fetuses deserve moral consideration is ludicrous enough without imputing cartoonish motivations to those who propose it.
Er, well, as one who was once a member of the Religious Right by default, I’d like to weigh in and note that “punishing the sluts” does indeed count heavily amongst many of the more strident abortion opponents. That is why it is packaged with opposition to (female) contraception and sex education, why the overwhelming bulk of the “purity balls” are father-daughter, why “second virginity” is focused on female remorse, why there’s so much scolding about white Americans being outbred, etc., etc. Given that the supposed motivation that abortion is murder doesn’t hold water in light of rape and incest exemptions, or in terms of the penalties advocated for women who obtain abortions, something else is apparently at work. I know it’s a real stretch to find misogyny in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Ryan, but work with me here.
Meanwhile, every time I try to recover my irrational fondness for Cal “‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ is a cool film” Thomas, he blows it on continuing to fluff the hypocrites. I had hoped that Blinded by Might indicated a seachange in his thinking, but oh well.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 14, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
I would add to mds’ observations that many anti-abortion activists don’t rail against fertility clinics and treatments, even though those medical procedures inevitably end up with several non-utilized embryos that get discarded after a successful implantation occurs.
If those embryos represent human life, then the anti-abortion forces should be picketing fertility clinics as well. Yet they don’t – and only a handful seem to get worked up about this phenomenon.
Just sayin that if it’s murder, then it’s murder, and all that other stuff shouldn’t even come into it.
Comment by theCoach —
March 14, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
Ted Haggard, responding to the column, “Why Christians Embrace ‘Gay’ Porn Stars,†responds, “To be fair, we are not embracing the entire agenda, we are simply embracing one small rock hard part.”
Comment by ricky —
March 14, 2007 @ 3:57 pm
They also don’t talk about how to deal with the fact that almost a quarter of all pregnancies end in ’spontaneous abortion’ or miscarriage. It seems you would have to convene a grand jury for each and everyone one of the millions of miscarriages each year to ensure that it was really an ‘accident’.
Comment by Mona —
March 14, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Ricky, as I’ve said before, I dislike the abortion issue per se and am hopelessly stuck in an internal deadlock on the subject; however, I do note the egregiously bad arguments on both sides. Yours is one of the not-so-good pro-choice arguments. Until quite recently in human history, most children did not survive past early childhood, and neonates were especially vulnerable. That fact, however, isn’t an argument for infanticide.
That said, I find Medved’s “to punish the whores” argument utterly obscene. For there are reasonable people — e.g. Nat Hentoff — who oppose legal abortion because the embryo/fetus is, in their view, vested with a right to life that generally trumps the mother’s bodily autonomy. A Medved-level “argument” cheapens the respect everyone ought to have for unborn life even if they cannot permit that the mother’s rights are subordinate.
Comment by Mona —
March 14, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
And if IOZ knows whereof he speaks — and I’ve no reason to doubt it — the full sentence ought to be:
“To be fair, we are not embracing the entire agenda, we are simply embracing one small rock hard part on a boat.”
Comment by Thoreau —
March 14, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
From their nearly unanimous condemnation of Bill Clinton for his extramarital affairs, a growing number of these “pro-family†voters appear ready to accept several Republican presidential candidates who do not share their ideal of marriage and faith.
Um, they seemed pretty read to support a divorced and remarried man in 1980 and 1984.
Comment by theCoach —
March 14, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
Mona,
There are much better arguments in favor of the legality of infanticide.
Let’s always keep in mind that we are not, or at least the relevent part, is legality, not the morality. Adding to a point from Obsidian Wings and Eric Martin’s haunt – laws, like war may not be the tool that people want it to be.
Comment by lornix —
March 15, 2007 @ 12:47 am
Thank you theCoach – for referring to “the small, rock hard part” in one post – and then, in your next post, implying that people are looking for a tool.
It is either brilliant multiple entendre, or a truly lucky accident – but whichever it was, it made my day a little brighter.
Comment by Sam_S —
March 15, 2007 @ 3:36 am
Never, never say “social construct” in my presence. Or “ilk” or “usurp”. I’ve shot up monitors for less.
Comment by Mona —
March 15, 2007 @ 7:25 am
Sam — I sent an email to you at your addy as it appears to those with administrative access here at UO. Just FYI.
Comment by theCoach —
March 15, 2007 @ 10:17 am
truly luck accident I am afraid!
Once you start down that path, just about anything can be an entendre, even a probing double entendre.
On the substance of my comment, I am convinced that the foundation of the idea that infantacide is immoral is deeply flawed and incoherent – not that it could not be built up using a more coherent framework.
Comment by Sam_S —
March 15, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Mona; I got no mail. Let me dig through my old mailbox to see if I can find yours.
Comment by Mona —
March 15, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
Sam, send an email to Jim Henley at the public address he gives out for this blog:
jimhenley “at symbol” gmail.com. Caption to “Please Forward to Mona.” I sent an email to you at the addy my system tells me you entered here (it sounds real Chinese, LOL!), but if you didn’t get it, send an email to Jim and we can then (gasp!) make contact.