See PAC run scared
by Tom Sullivan
It's important to be a victim these days and, boy howdy, they do it right at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, MD.
Raw Story's Tony Ortega reports on a panel titled, "Religious Freedom in America: Would the Pilgrims Still Be Welcome Here?" Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins seemed to agree with talk radio host Dana Loesch that it's "a badge of honor to be persecuted" and that Christians in this country should be a protected class:
“And since we have the victim competition in the United States,” Loesch added, “I think we win.”
And thus a religious super majority in America transubstantiates itself into a persecuted minority. Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect, as Tom Lehrer sings.
But it's men, really, who are most persecuted. Why, "feminist ideologues and gay marriage supporters" want to make men irrelevant:
It’s going to be hard to argue that “fathers are essential” if gay-marriage laws say “they are optional,” said Jennifer A. Marshall, vice president for the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at the Heritage Foundation.
At “The Future of Marriage” panel, the Washington Times reports, Marshall called gay marriage the “final nail in the coffin” in the fight against fatherless homes. (Presumably, two-father homes violate code.) And just yesterday, I thought "being picked last in gym class" was their biggest motivating fear.
The Guardian's Jeb Lund offers a more satirical take on the marriage panel, observing that political movements can seem "nonsensical to outsiders because groupthink elides the needs for certain connective thoughts to be voiced aloud." We know who the good guys are and that the bad guys are bad. It goes without saying (and does) that effects have causes. There's no point wasting time demonstrating what they are.
Yet, even thorny conservative social issues ultimately come down to money. It was just a matter of time. Lund writes:
... Wade Horn, former assistant secretary for children and families, weighed in with the observation that marriages save money and diversify productivity because “marriages allow for economies of scale and specialization” within the household. (For those scoring economies of scale at home, presumably because specialization has made one of you an actuary: economies of scale good when you are married to someone; bad when buying prescription drugs for nations.) When your bridesmaids give you bewildered looks at the altar, point at your groom and cross their eyes while miming throwing up, just hold your hands apart to show how much he scales your economy.
To a cynic, that might read like a heartless thought. But do you know what’s really heartless? Government. “Children need their mothers and fathers. There is no government program that can possibly substitute for the love and guidance and sense of place in the world that parents provide,” MacDonald explained. “What we’re seeing now in the inner city is catastrophic. Marriage has all but disappeared. When young boys are growing up, they grow up without any expectation that they will marry the mothers of their children.” And she’s right; people who think government will love you or your abandoned children are idiots. The Department of Love has been a failure since 1967, and large faceless institutions will never care for human beings no matter how well they claim to mean. Those “inner city” people shouldn’t have been trying to hug America. They should have hugged something more practical like each other and that smiley face from Wal-Mart.
If only those people were less urban. So it goes.