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Thursday, August 30, 2007 12:00 AM

Forcing Larry Craig's resignation while embracing David Vitter

Cost-free moralism is the only type the right-wing "traditional marriage" movement believes in.

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  • Thursday, August 30, 2007 07:01 AM

    Non-sexual moral values

    The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to prostitution -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation.

    This applies to a far broader set of "moral values." The repugs concentrate on sexual matters in order to avoid challenging their base on non-sexual morality: helping the poor, sick, disabled and elderly, fighting for social and economic justice, supporting all kinds of families, improving education, building communities, reaching out to "the other," turning the other cheek, rejecting violence and seeking peace.

    You know, all that stuff Jesus talked about.

    All the stuff Democrats stand for.

    Take away the sexual shame component of the repugs, and all that's left is stamping on the middle class to further enrich the wealthy.

    Like the old argument about how repugs would suffer from the repeal of Roe, nothing would destroy the repugs faster than if homosexuality suddenly ceased to exist.

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