You know, I think I need to thank the Minnesota GOP for its decision to push through an anti-same-sex-marriage amendment.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t support the amendment. I couldn’t oppose it more if it was a proposed constitutional amendment to execute me. It is an affront to liberty, to civil rights, to equal protection under the law, and to basic human decency.
That’s why I want to thank them for it.
Because the Minnesota Republican Party has staked its position, now and forever, on the wrong side of history. They have relegated themselves to the same dark place as those who once defended whites’-only drinking fountains. As those who denied women the right to vote. As those who put Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II. And their bigotry will not be remembered as somehow less fulsome because they have hidden it behind weasel-words, like “we just want the debate.” Southerners defended states’ rights, too — which is why we remember “states’ rights” as code for racism.
The GOP laid bare the hatred at its core this weekend. With four exceptions in the House, and with none in the Senate, the GOP pushed this hateful amendment through. It was supported by the leadership in both houses, invoked by a hateful prayer from a self-styled preacher who has previously called for the death of homosexuals. And that is the other reason I want to thank the Minnesota GOP. Because while I knew, intellectually, just how awful this party has become, I didn’t feel it, like a punch in the gut, until I saw the vote tally late Saturday night. For the Minnesota legislature has now voted to codify bigotry in the state constitution, and that is something that any decent human should view with horror.
So thank you, Minnesota GOP, for slapping me upside the head with your hate. Rest assured, I will take the opportunity to do whatever I can do to help defeat you and this hateful amendment in 2012. I will donate whatever time and money I am able to, I will phone bank, I will door knock, I will march in parades, and I will support others who do the same. I will not rest until you receive the results next November that all bigots deserve — complete and utter defeat.
I agree that it’s a very good move for the civil rights movement. The citizens of Minnesota will finally get to vote once and for all and likely trounce the amendment, taking charge in codifying gay rights.
…now and forever, on the wrong side of history. They have relegated themselves to the same dark place as those who once defended whites’-only drinking fountains.
Southern Democrats?
As those who denied women the right to vote.
(Mostly) Democrats?
As those who put Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II.
Totally Democrats?
My point is not that Democrats suck(ed), though of course they did and do. My point is that “now and forever” is just wrong. Parties change, and just as back then Republicans were on the right side of most civil rights questions and Democrats were wrong, and today the opposite is true, over time both parties came to embrace civil rights because that is the trend of history.
A few Republicans oppose gay rights out of sincere principled bigotry; most of the rest who oppose do so from electoral calculus. And of course some (and more every day, c.f. me) support. As the calculus changes, so will the votes. This is a blip, not a now-and-forever dark stain etc.
(Unless the demographic trend reverses for some reason, which I don’t see any reason why it would, but it could, I suppose. Young people today are increasingly pro-gay-rights. Their accretion into the political mix may end up dooming abortion rights, but it will cement gay rights.)
I’m willing to bet that you’ve voted for Democrats in the past, and you’ll vote for Democrats in the future, and I doubt that the party’s shameful internment policy as much as crossed your mind. “Can I vote in good conscience for a (wo)man whose political forebears literally ran concentration camps?”
Political memory just isn’t that long.
“Robert”, I thought it was petty to simply think that people are so stupid that they make associations by name forever. Duh, it was the people by then name of Democrats who authored all that oppressive legislation but the people who are called Democrats now are a different bunch. A name is just a name and these changes only serve for mild amusement and not valid political thought.
The people who voted for the “save marriage” legislation are temporally called Minnesota Republicans, but in this way they are going to live on “forever” in the thread of discriminatory politicians, not judged on what future Republicans are like.
You can’t honestly believe that people are that partisan. Why don’t we just judge people based on whether their ancestors fought for or against the British? Stake out the Tories, no?
Duh, it was the people by then name of Democrats who authored all that oppressive legislation but the people who are called Democrats now are a different bunch. A name is just a name and these changes only serve for mild amusement and not valid political thought.
Weird how current Democrats drape themselves in the mantle of FDR then. I guess they’re being petty.
I kind of agree with Robert, but I think it’s just the difference of an adjective. When Jeff wrote “Because the Minnesota Republican Party has staked its position, now and forever, on the wrong side of history. They have relegated themselves to the same dark place as those who once defended whites’-only drinking fountains,” Robert convinces me that he could have more pedantically written “Because the Minnesota Republican Party of the early 2000s has staked its position, now and forever, on the wrong side of history. They have relegated themselves to the same dark place as those who once defended whites’-only drinking fountains. ”
But I think that it’s pretty clear that’s what Jeff meant. Overall, his post is talking about the history of bigotry — not the history of the GOP. And at this moment in history, on the issue of LGBT rights, it’s pretty clear that the GOP is on the side of bigotry. (Like Robert, I hope that will cease to be the case in the future.)
Robert, current Democrats drape themselves in FDR because they see a policy continuity between his social welfare policies and the social welfare policies they support today. Draping based on policy continuity seems fair enough to me.
Well, I know I can always (kind of) win you over by prefacing a statement with another one about Democrats sucking.
If you assert policy continuity, then you also have to take on the burden of policy contiguity; FDR also operated concentration camps. So it isn’t petty to think that a label has some meaning other than being an “amusing” referent. (“We started the American Nazi Party for mild amusement; we’re nationalist Americans and we believe in socialism. Why be petty and tie us to our antecedents?” – Because names do have meaning.)
That at the same time, no sane person thinks that Al Gore and Barack Obama want to open concentration camps, testifies to my original point: the political memory of against-the-grain-of-history policies fades.
I agree with you that Jeff’s post could have avoided the issue with a language change, but I don’t agree that he didn’t mean what I thought he meant, rather than what you think he meant. (Unless he clarifies, of course; I’m always open to clarification.) I think he meant that the (MN) Republicans will be forever remembered for their despicable vile etc.; I don’t think that’s true. FDR isn’t going down in history books as “the leader of the other power that ran concentration camps in WWII”, any more than Grover Cleveland is remembered as the guy who stopped women from voting.
I think historical memory is pretty happenstance. People associate FDR with The New Deal; in contrast, President Grant, who in some ways was an excellent President, is remembered as a corrupt drunk. To a significant degree, I suspect historical memory of being arbitrary.
Why is it not possible to pick-and-choose policies to resurrect or glorify while discarding others? This is something that is done every day by everybody, unless you’re a person consumed by guilt.
People will be remembered for their good attributes if they were somewhat nice, and their particularly terrible attributed if they were a horrible person.
Although sometimes I mention how Hitler was a good painter and am met with looks of disgust. So much for trying, I guess.
I actually think that Robert has a point here … were the choice between the Republicans of today and the Southern Democrats of 1950. Clearly both parties are rife with racism and bigotry. One hates poor people more, one hates black people more. Neither is great.
Thankfully, the choice we have now is between the racism and gay-hate of the modern Republican party and the wussy-and-corporatist-but-basically-not-exploiting-prejudice modern Democratic party. And the choice is clear.
—Myca
But Jeff isn’t talking about “Republicans” or even “modern Republicans”. His post is about the Minnesota GOP.
Yeah, that’s fair. I think that the bigoted, hateful characteristics of the Minnesota GOP are broadly shared by the nationwide GOP, but that wasn’t really Jeff’s point.
—Myca
I don’t trust “they’re on the wrong side of history”– it’s like “the lurkers support me in email”, except that the email already exists.
It’s an argument which can as easily be used by the bad guys if they’re winning.
Sigh…remember when Minnesota was progressive? What happened to us? I remember when I was proud to be a Minnesotan, because we were – for all our many flaws – a state with a social safety net, a state in which at least some people welcomed immigrants and refugees, a state where you could invoke the imperfect-but-still-better-than-most name of Governor Olson, a state where people were proud of the truckers’ strike…God, now we have these creepy, creepy fundies straight out of Freudian psychoanalysis and a bunch of people who wouldn’t know the common good if it bit them on the ass. Intellectually I can see points where everything went wrong (Ventura paving the way for Pawlenty, mostly) but emotionally it’s so hard to understand. We used to have it all here, we really did.
John Kriesel, Iraq veteran, 1st term Republican representative, during floor debate on Minnesota’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban recognition of same-sex marriage:
Neither do I.
If they were on the right side of history, would you agree with them more?
There is a strong movement to the economic right. If you support welfare policies, you are probably on the wrong side of history. Does that automatically make welfare morally wrong?
Things are not right or wrong because of how popular they are, or how they will be viewed by people in the future. Right is right. Wrong is wrong.
Agreement with Robert’s first comment. This post is a little, er, melodramatic.
@nobody.really:
Kriesel’s statement was the one I linked to above, when I noted that there were four GOP votes against the amendment. I disagree with Kriesel on a lot, but I have a great deal of respect for him — in addition to taking a strong stand against the amendment, he’s come out in favor of compromising with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton on the budget, which is another thing his caucus is against. If the Minnesota GOP was made up of John Kriesels, I’d be much less appalled by them.
As for some of the debate above — yes, I meant that this is a stain on the Minnesota GOP, now and forevermore, just as Strom Thurmond is a stain on the South Carolina Democratic Party even to this day. I fully acknowledge that the Democrats have a shameful history on racial equality, one that did not begin to be addressed until 1948, when a young Minneapolis mayor named Hubert Humphrey spearheaded the charge to push racists out of the party. It would take a few decades, but the Democrats did it; unfortunately, the Republicans took them in all too willingly.
If the Republican Party begins pushing out the homophobes, they will begin to atone for this sin, much as the Democrats have tried to atone over the past fifty years. I hope they do. I hope in 2061, people are able to talk of the GOP’s shameful history on GLBT rights the same way we can talk of the Democratic Party’s shameful history on race — as history. (Mostly.) But that will require the Republican Party to do the right thing, even at risk to their political standing, just as the Democrats risked defeat in 1948. They are not there, not nearly there. Hopefully, they’ll get there soon.
“The right side of history” is a sloppy way of saying that years from now, people will look at the anti-gay crowd the same way as we now look at those who screamed about the Yellow Peril or who beat up activists for women’s right to vote.