Centerfield

JD, this is a centrist site, and the recent election confirms that the views of this group are far closer to the center than those who would call them "the enemy", as you just did.

Opposition to gay marriage comprises a sizable majority in this country, and measures banning it have easily and consistently passed in every state it has come up for a vote, even in famously tolerant and liberal states like Hawaii.

There is a mandate against gay marriage in this country, more so than most any other issue. If opposition to gay marriage isn't a centrist position, then perhaps nothing is.

Susan,

Mr. Burress and his organization are about opposing same-sex marriage, true, but they're also opposed to civil unions. Now, if your position is that a majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage, I'll concede the point because the 2004 presidential exit poll data shows that legal marriage only receives 25% support. But "no legal recognition," the aim of Mr. Burress, receives only 37%. If you say a majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage because 72% supported some lesser standard, that's fine; by the same standard, you should be prepared to say that the majority of Americans support some legal recognition of same-sex couples because 60% supported some standard greater than nothing.

But Mr. Burress and his conservatives aren't just about same-sex marriage. They also oppose abortion. According to the data, 55% of Americans believe abortion should be always or mostly legal. Now, I've treated the exit poll data more objectively and balanced here, so I am not taking the results at face value. I'm merely using the data here as the best available objective metric to rebut your position.

However, regardless of the data, when an organization's stated objective is build a 1.5 million voter network so "religious conservatives can be running school boards, town councils and county prosecutors' offices," I believe that such an organization is a clear threat to centrism. If an organization had as its stated goal to build a network to fill Congress with pacifists who believed the use of military force is never justified, I would consider that, also, a threat to centrism. Both are enemies. But the former, as this story indicates, is real, whereas the latter, to my knowledge, is only imagined.

There are two additional implications in your comment. First, you suggest that, because the president was re-elected, the political center has shifted right. Such a position is reasonable, but there are reasonable alternatives to it. One could reasonably interpret (as I do) "centrism" to reflect the unshifting ideology of the center of the political spectrum, which exists independently of the two major parties--who may shift along the spectrum from the center to their respective extremes and back at will. One could also interpret (as it appears you do) "centrism" to mean the political mean or median between the two major parties, so that as one party becomes more extreme with the support of some part of the electorate, the "center" necessarily shifts to some degree towards that extreme as a result. I don't suggest either definition to be superior, merely that both are rational.

The second implication, which I infer not only from the tone of your comment to the instant thread but also your comment on this thread, is that you'd consider me somewhere closer to knee-jerk liberal than centrist. That perception is inaccurate. I was a Republican operative for almost fifteen years, working in the Michigan state organization for the president's father in 1992 and for Virginia Sen. John Warner's 1996 re-election campaign, as well as senior staff for a host of lesser known state and local office candidates. While it is true that I'm an old-style Eisenhower/Bush 41 Republican, and that my party has been moving to my social right, I am not quite liberal in the American sense.

I believe that centrism encompasses being as appalled by the excesses of the right as by the excesses of the left. While the left wing is still as extreme, in its way, as the right is, it is the right wing, and not the left, that feels empowered by the 2004 election results and are vocally asserting themselves. That I speak out against the right more often than the left is not a reflection of a personal left-leaning; it's a reflection of relative volume of the right compared to the dumbfounded silence of the left in the weeks since the election.

I don't really like to use the word "enemy" but clearly they are the "opposition" or even the "competition" Their agenda is far beyond opposition to gay marriage, which even was John Kerry's stated position.

With regard to whether gay marriage is a centrist position, I think centrists can go either way. The truth is that many young conservatives, at least those of the neocon variety, are tolerant of gay marriage. From what I've seen, the majority opposition is mostly an age cohort variation, with older folks of all political preferences being uncomfortable with it.

"First, you suggest that, because the president was re-elected, the political center has shifted right. "

I didn't suggest this, and it is not my opinion.
I do not believe the political center has shifted this election.
Look up the date of the landslide Hawaii amendment vote I mentioned earlier.

The second implication, which I infer not only from the tone of your comment to the instant thread but also your comment on this thread, is that you'd consider me somewhere closer to knee-jerk liberal than centrist. That perception is inaccurate.

I did not state or imply any opinion about you, and I don't even have one. Your mind-reading powers have failed, JD.

Please avoid mistating or fabricating the opinions of others, and try to avoid personalizing discussion topics.

Thank you for posting the article, it was interesting to read that 10 more states will be voting on amendments to ban gay marriage. How many of them do you think will pass?

To f/u on Susan's comments. To label the opposition as the "enemy" only further polarizes and divides. I know how the Christian right will respond to being called the "enemy", by calling that side the "enemy".

The Christian right doesn't speak for all Christians, likely not even a majority but because "they" are openly Christian and becasue of that they have the ear of many Christians. The trick for the Center is to speak directly to Christians, address their issues and concerns and ideally use some of their language.

JD, this is a centrist site, and the recent election confirms that the views of this group are far closer to the center than those who would call them "the enemy", as you just did.

I think the above quote, Susan, sure makes JD sound like he's less "close to the center" than the religious conservatives he's criticizing.

Susan,

1) See Bill's comment, supra.
2) a) Art. I, Sec. 23, of the Hawaiian Constitution was ratified by popular election on Nov. 3, 1998. The text provides that "The legislature shall have the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples," as you may confirm here.
b) Ohio Ballot Issue 1, propounding Art. XV to the Ohio Constitution, goes farther to say, "This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage," as you may confirm here.
c) To the extent that we are arguing about the rightward motion on the issue of same-sex marriage alone, to the exclusion of a host of other possible example issues, the text of the more recent amendment is more conservative and more ambiguous than the text was six years ago.
3) The number of future same-sex marriage bans that pass will largely, I believe, depend on a) the extent to which they only ban marriage, as opposed to civil unions or domestic partnerships, and b) the effectiveness with which advocacy groups are able to point out the difference between same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, in order to restrict the scope of the amendments to same-sex marriage only, and not to civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Chris and Rick,

I used the word "enemy" to be provocative, but not invidious--in other words, to incite action, but not animosity. Social conservatives are acting. They use phrases like "culture war," and perceive themselves to be warriors on one side of that war. I don't mean to suggest that we're necessarily warriors on the opposite side, but it would be wrong to suggest that we're merely impartial referees. While I believe that centrist positions on social issues are more deliberative and reflect greater contemplation of social justice and pragmatism, we must not sacrifice passion and action in favor of cerebral introspection.

Centrism must balance the need to avoid extremist policies with the need to incite public action. Regardless of what we stand for, our stand means nothing if we're not prepared to take action on it. Having observed social conservatives in action here in Virginia since the 1993 Republican state convention (when they forced the nomination of Mike "Wizard of Oz" Farris as lieutenant governor), I can guarantee that whether we consider them an enemy or not, many of them who are politically active will consider all who accept any position less rigid than theirs to be enemies. Therefore, if we want to counteract them, we must be at least as well funded and at least as well organized.

Chris,

I believe social conservativism is wrong in a secular sense, by which I mean that, while social conservatives frequently justify their policies on religious grounds, there is no practical difference between Christians, Jews, Muslims, or (is there extreme Buddhism?) anything else. I don't mean to suggest that all Christians are social conservatives, or that all social conservatives are Christian. I do suspect that a majority of social conservatives are religious.

Being a Presbyterian educated at a Catholic primary school, a Mennonite secondary school, and a Baptist university, I respect faith of individuals. I don't respect, and I campaign against, the incorporation of personal faith into government policies--regardless of whose personal faith it is.

Rick:

Based on your comments above...are you of the opinion that once the "Baby Boom" generation shuffles off this mortal coil...civil unions (or gay marriage, perhaps?) will no longer be fought?

There's evidence that the current crop of young folks are more and more being raised in socially conservative homes. Does this mean you're thinking they'll rebel against their parents? Will their parents see the light (so to speak) or are they already tolerant?

I really, strongly agree with Jaded JD on this and I find Susan's attempt to define centrism for everyone else and then to avoid any discussion by accusing Jaded of "personalzing" the issue quite annoying. He was not personalizing the issue; hew as simply objecting to your effort to mischaracterize what he said and to define centrism for everyone else.

I get very nervous when I read a conservative Christian groups talk about taking gover school boards and town councils. The efforts of this organization I suspect go beyond gay marriage or even abortion. If it was just that, I could live with it. The next step is likely to be attempts to mandate the teaching of creationism and to foist a whole host of Christian fundamentalist nostrums on the public.

I don't like using the term "enemy" either and perhaps it was ill-conceived, but I suspect this group considers secularists like me to be the enemy as well. It's the conservative Christian groups that are trying to change the status quo and impose their view of morality on everyone else. I have no problem at all with people of faith, but when people try to impose a partiuclaristic religous agenda on the public, I do object. People like Mr. Burress aren't interested in democracy or public discours except in order to proselytize their views. I seriously doubt that they think that secularists even have a legitimate point of view. It's not as if they want to take over school boards and town councils to foster more open debate. Obviously, that's not true of all religious Christians or even religious conservatives, but it's certainly true of people like Mr. Burress.

MWS,

I strongly suspect that many of these christian conservatives already feel like they are under siege and that school boards and town councils have ALREADY been taken over by anti-religous extremists who seek to expunge any public religous expression whatsoever.

For instance reference the story elsewhere on this site about the banning of Handel from a school holiday concert of mixed content. I've also seen personaly instances where elementary schools who decorate thier hallways with student drawings have refused to allow students to include anything vaguely religous in thier drawings.

For the record, I am agnostic....but I believe there is a very firm distinction between officialy advocating a religion .....and allowing individuals (or groups) who have been afforded some public venue for expressing themselves to include thier personal religious beliefs as part of that expression.

I strongly suspect that the phenominum represented by Mr.Burress and his increasing popularity is a BACKLASH against an iron-handed and wrong-headed policy of no tolerance for ANY individual expression of religous beliefs in a community events that has been ongoing for a number of years now. If there is a community event (like a school concert) which provides a forum for the community to express itself and Christian Conservatives make up a considerable portion of that community then thier views/beliefs should be included as part (not all) of that event.

Is Mr. Burress an extremist intent upon establishing some sort of theocracy? I honestly don't know.....but I firmly suspect the vast majority of his support comes from reasonable people who feel like their beliefs have been under attack for years and now see no recourse but to resort to the extremes in order to preserve (or recapture) some ability to express themselves as part of the community to which they belong.

Cengel,

I actually agree with you and should have added that I think the left-wing effort to ban all religious references is equally silly. Undoubtedly, some of this is backlash. But what often happens with backlash is that it goes beyond its original intent and starts developing a momentum of its own. So that while the initial intent may be reasonable, I suspect that when groups like this get a little power, they go off the deep end and you end up with things like mandating creationism in the curriculum.

And I'm not sure I agree with you that this guy (I can't speak for his followers) is motivated simply by a desire to restore some balance. His stated goal is to faciliate a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage throughout the US. So it's not as if he is just upset because someone prohibited Handel from a school.

I think they should just prohibit Handel because "The Messiah" is a beautiful piece that is constantly butchered at local high school performances.

MWS,

I'm sorry I did not mean to imply that Burress wasn't an extremist. I honestly don't know enough about him to know if he is...but I wouldn't be terribly surprised by it.

The point I really wanted to make was that extremists really only gain significant support when regular every day people feel like they have had thier backs pushed up against the wall. Either local school administrators/town councils are already in the hands of anti-religious extremists or (what I suspect is far more likely) administrators are so gunshy about potential complaints/lawsuits from the anti-religous fringe that they are willing to resort to unreasonably draconian measures to forestall them.

Bottom line, unless administrators are willing to show a little more backbone in facing complaints from the anti-religious fringe then they are going to cede control to people like Mr. Burres and the religious fringe.....because that will be the only ones left for people to turn to who will.